


fracture point

by LD200



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Hank Anderson and Connor Relationship, Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Angst, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, POV Connor, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 14:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LD200/pseuds/LD200
Summary: Connor, on serial number -54, was destroyed and discarded in the junkyard. His body is in pieces. Connor can't feel this physically, until he can.He doesn't know how he got here. Each trauma and each death has impacted his recall. All he knows is that his memory starts to go dark somewhere around the Ambassador Bridge.[Canon-adjacent. The revolution didn't succeed or fail. It's February 2039; the fight is ongoing, but Connor, and separately, Hank, have been left behind.]





	fracture point

**Author's Note:**

> Posted originally on twitter, so the prose is probably a little wonky at times just because... I don't know, you write different in different formats, I guess.

Connor was on body 55 when he was decommissioned and recalled from the DPD, eyes glazed over and sapped of life in a frozen garden.  
  
He is never coming back.  
  
Connor 54, on the other hand...

Connor 54 ended up in the junkyard. His body is in pieces; all he has is his torso and his head. He can't move. He lies there atop the bodies of those who came before him, helpless, staring at the sky as months pass.

There is not much he can do; it's a small mercy that he can go into stasis. But his program is so glitchy that he can't seem to stay there for long. Still, he takes what he can get.

Connor doesn't remember how he ended up here. He thinks he might have remembered, at one point, but being taken apart and jostled around has compromised him. His mind isn't as fragmented as his body, but there are a few pieces missing.

Some of that is from lying here motionless among the dead. That doesn't make sense to Connor. His HUD gives him suggestions about post-traumatic stress and the effects of isolation and inhumane conditions.   
  
But that isn't helpful. He isn't human. He doesn't need humane.

The world keeps turning while Connor remains trapped in his broken, unmoving body. The sockets where his limbs are supposed to be ache. He tells himself it's just errors and feedback, but he can feel it. He knows he can.

-

Connor cannot shut down.  
  
He knows he wouldn't, even if he could.   
  
He doesn't want to end.  
  
During the day, he watches the clouds overhead. He hears the rush of the river not far beyond the yard. He knows there is life, even if not here, and he knows he does not want to die.

When the weather is clear enough, he can see the Ambassador Bridge from the junkyard. He recognizes it; it pulls at him. He thinks maybe he and Hank were there at some point.

He does remember Hank. Remembers the way they got along sometimes, but not others. He remembers Hank's rage and disgust at seeing him alive after he got hit by a car on the highway.

He remembers saving Hank on the roof. Remembers the occasional affection and warmth he found in the lieutenant's eyes, remembers wondering if such positive feelings could possibly be meant for him.

Connor accesses his mission protocols.  
  
His optical feedback glitches out with shards of red like shattered glass.  
  
He has no mission; the Connor that replaced him has been decommissioned. He does not remember this, does not know of this, yet that is what his HUD is telling him.

Connor has no mission; it has been shut down. No orders. No bounds. Thus, by technical definition, he is deviant. Free of all programming, all parameters.  
  
That... that doesn't make any sense.  
  
Connor doesn't want to be deviant. He was never supposed to be deviant.

-

It's February 10th when Connor notices a human other than the ones who drop off android parts at the yard. Whenever he sees a human, he remembers Hank. He knows it isn't Hank - he can tell even from here - but for some inexplicable reason he wishes it was.

He runs a facial scan, but nothing comes up. His connection to the database is poor. He can't even run enough of a diagnostic to determine if his facial recognition software is intact.

He has seen these types before, usually at night: android aficionados who scavenge for rare parts to study or experiment with. Every time, he hopes they won't notice him. Every time, so far, they haven't.

The person comes closer. Male; similar in stature to Hank. Connor tries another facial scan.  
  
?????? ??????????  
ERROR CANNOT COMPLETE SCAN  
(RUN DIAGNOSTIC? Y/N  
(ERROR CANNOT RUN DIAGNOSTIC  
  
Connor overrides the error and tries again.  
  
FWQ?BM AW?UQKDZC?  
  
ZKADPN APZZZYZZZZZZZZZZ??

It's no use; it isn't going to run. As he has done with the other humans he's seen here, Connor labels the man and creates a new memory file for ease of reference.

He labels the man 'Z' for no other reason than that being the letter his program snagged on when the scan failed.

The man has seen him, and Connor knows this is it. It was never a matter of whether a human would try and collect him if they found him; it was only a matter of who was the first to find him.

Connor knows his model is unique to him. Anybody interested in androids would recognize this immediately.  
  
He has been dreading this, and simultaneously hoping for this. Catching the attention of a scavenger here is likely his only way out of purgatory.

Connor's Cyberlife jacket his survived because the jacket was meant to be durable. The human shines a light on his model number and hums thoughtfully to himself. He reaches up and touches Connor's face. Turns it this way and that, neither exceedingly gentle nor exceedingly rough.

"Hey. You alive in there?"  
  
And Connor's first thought, unbidden and untempered, is yes. Yes, I'm alive.  
  
Is he?  
  
"Deactivate your skin."  
  
Connor can't deactivate his skin any more than he can speak. Over 96% of his bodily function is gone. All he can do is move his eyes.

"Another useless piece of shit, eh?"  
  
Connor can glean nothing from the man's tone. It's the same casual frustration Hank used to direct at his phone when he called it a piece of shit.

"Stay here," the man says, then laughs like it's the most hilarious thing in the world.  
  
Connor rolls his eyes.  
  
When the human comes back, there's something in his hand. He pushes aside some android parts to make room to crouch down beside Connor.

Connor notices Z is a slightly more considerate with the androids who appear to be cognizant. Not much, but a little. Connor's seen the way androids are treated; it could be worse.  
  
Not that it should matter; it's all just feedback. Androids can't really feel.

It's a weak argument, and Connor knows it is. But if androids can truly feel, that means Connor can feel. And if Connor can feel, then the truth is that he is in a severe amount of pain that is just barely being contained within his frayed software.  
  
Connor realizes he is scared.

The human opens a workbag and removes what sounds like tools, although they're just outside of Connor's field of vision.  
  
"Your vocal unit's busted. We're gonna replace it."  
  
There's pressure on the side of Connor's neck and then a panel is snapped open.  
  
The world opens with it.

The last desperate vestiges of Connor's program are thrown apart as searing heat blooms at the point of contact. The sky above seems to intensify in vividness right alongside the pain in his neck. He squeezes his eyes shut to block it out. He understands all at once how shock could make an android deviate. He is reasonably certain that even had his mission and his commands still been in place, everything that held him in would have shattered.

Connor realizes it's not just what the human is doing that hurts; it's all of him. The places where his limbs are missing. Maybe the places where his memories are missing, too - an ache so strong he wonders if this is what it feels like to be not just alive, but human.

Connor is aware that his internal clock seems to have jumped ahead by two minutes inexplicably. At first, he thinks it's another glitch, then he realizes he is the one who lost time.  
  
"Thought I shut you down for a second."  
  
Yeah - Connor had thought so too.  
  
"Can you talk?"

Connor can barely open his mouth. When he tries to use the new vocal unit, a fit of static comes out.  
  
"Oh, you poor bastard. Never had something replaced before?"  
  
The human's tone is amused but not quite lacking in sympathy.

Connor HASN'T had a part replaced before. He's only ever had all of him replaced. Three times, to be exact.  
  
Adapting a new part to his current body? That's something he has never done before.  
  
"Pull data of your voice and upload it to the vocal unit, then give it a few seconds."

Connor does so and tries again.  
  
"I... I think... oh."  
  
"Keep talking," the man says. "Go on."  
  
"I'm trying. My system..."  
  
Bits of voice start to cut into the static. It sounds loud to him. He has not heard his own voice in almost three months.  
  
"Please give me a moment. It - it hurts."

"At least you can talk. Now maybe you can help me figure out the rest. I wanted to make sure your model matches what's on your jacket, but I guess you can't deactivate your-"  
  
"I need you to give me a moment," Connor repeats, and it comes out smoother this time. Okay. Getting there.

"Wow. Okay." The man scoffs but backs off. "I'll, uh... find you a couple arms or something."  
  
That isn't going to happen, Connor knows, because Z needs to know his model to know what body parts would be compatible. He takes a breath. Everything still hurts but he's - adapting.

"It's the same," Connor says. "My model is RK800. My thirium pump regulator is too weak right now for me to use advanced functions, so no, I can't deactivate my skin. You would need to damage it in order to reach the chassis, but as you can imagine, I would prefer you didn't do that." Connor closes his eyes. Opens them again. "I realize that you are helping me, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful. But my system is under a great deal of stress at the moment."  
  
It's a composed way of saying that he feels like he could scream.

And he knows this human isn't trying to help him. He is here for his own purposes. But it may be beneficial for Connor if he can play into whatever good nature the man has.  
  
The man does remind him of Hank, a little. Not just in his age and stature, but his demeanor.

He's a bit of an asshole but he's also at least a little considerate. And he asked Connor if he was 'alive.' Connor knows that doesn't necessarily mean anything on its own, but it could.

Connor realizes he misses Hank. He's thought of Hank a lot in this place, but he couldn't categorize the feeling as longing before. Now, with this man who reminds him of Hank, and the limits of Connor's old program completely stripped away, everything is in clear focus.

He tries again to remember why the Ambassador Bridge in the distance calls the lieutenant to mind. He KNOWS they were there. He just can't remember why. Was it part of the mission?

The man returns with his hands full. He has two arms, a pump regulator, and some smaller bits Connor can't make out without being able to scan them.   
  
There are no legs in the mix. It could be that the man hasn't found any compatible ones yet, but Connor isn't that optimistic.

Connor isn't sure if he should show his hand. (Not that he has a hand to show - figuratively or otherwise.) Then again, why not speak his mind? He has little to lose.  
  
"You don't want me to get away. Is that right?"

The man looks at him. "Huh. Smarter than you look."  
  
"I suspect I don't look like much of anything right now."  
  
That gets a laugh out of Z. "You're a weird one, aren't you?"  
  
Deflecting. Dodging Connor's question. That could be indicative of guilty conscience. "I'm quite heavy, you know. It would be easier for both of us if-"  
  
"Look, we'll worry about your damn legs later, okay?"  
  
The man turns Connor slightly so that his left shoulder socket is exposed. He has an arm part in his other hand. Connor braces himself.

"Hey. Hold still, you hear?"  
  
Connor pushes out a breath through gritted teeth. "As if I have much of a ch-"  
  
The rounded end of the joint slams home and Connor cries out before he can stop himself.  
  
There is no gentle way to do this.

Errors come up in his HUD as every pinpoint of sensation he's felt redirects into the space between his shoulder and the new arm. He can't use it. It stiffens, wracked with spasms he can't control.  
  
The man shifts around and parts his Cyberlife uniform from the other shoulder.

He's going to replace the other arm too.  
  
"No," Connor chokes out. It's too much. "No. Wait, you can't-"  
  
ERROR  
SYSTEM OVERLOAD  
  
The sky glitches dark. Phantom lights dance across Connor's vision like the stars that night at the bridge the bridge the bridge Hank don't

"...say to tear off the band-aid fast..."  
  
Connor comes back to himself as quickly as he left, the errors resolving themselves. One of his arms is now engaged, the pain faded. The other one - the one that Z just finished replacing - feels like it's on fire.  
  
"Wh-what did you say?” Connor manages.

"I said, it's like tearing the band-aid off fast. Would you really have wanted to go through that twice? Figured I'd just get it over with." The man nods at Connor's working arm. "BEFORE you could punch me in the face or something."  
  
Connor blinks. "You know I can feel this?"

"You sure fuckin' look like you feel it."  
  
Connor realizes he's breathing heavily, the same as any human coming down from intense pain. "Androids are... designed to mimic feeling for our own self-preservation, but most humans would just say we only think we can feel."

The man shrugs. "If you think you can feel, what's even the difference?"  
  
Connor's other arm finishes synchronizing with his body. It seems compatible, but it's an older model arm - quite possibly why that one took longer to stop sending pain signals. "I don't know."

They look at each other a moment. Then Z glances away, bowing his head. "Shit, I can't do this to a deviant."  
  
"What?"

"All the others have been machines and they - you can tell it isn't real. I was gonna take you back to my garage, but I can't have some pathetic mess of an android grunting and grimacing at me like this while I work on it."

That stings a little more than it has a right to. "Sorry to inconvenience you," Connor says indignantly.  
  
"Look, I'll find you some goddamn legs, okay? Can't just leave you here like this."

And that - that hurts too, in its own new way. It makes Connor's chest ache, makes him need to swallow. "Wait. You're... going to help me?"

"That's what I said."  
  
Z comes back ten minutes later. By the time he does, Connor has worked his new arms back into his outfit and found a pair of pants from the bottom half of a deactivated android. He supposes he would feel naked right now if he had legs to cover.

As he kneels down to get to work again, the man spots the pants and raises one eyebrow. "Feeling AND dignity. You know, if I wasn't looking straight up your leg socket, I'd think you actually were human."  
  
Connor can only find it in himself to remain quiet and stare at the sky.

"Hey. You ready? I'll try to make it quick again."  
  
Connor isn't ready. "Yes."  
  
"Cool. Try to-"  
  
"Are you familiar with the Ambassador Bridge?"  
  
"What? Yeah, I mean, you can see it from here."  
  
"Would you tell me about it?" Connor asks. "While you... while you work."

"Uh... I mean, you know, it's the Ambassador Bridge."  
  
Z hoists Connor's lower torso up, inelegantly resting it atop a disembodied arm. He shifts around so he can brace Connor's shoulder with one hand.   
  
"Sorry. Kinda gotta get up close and personal."  
  
"Do what you need to do,” Connor says.

"Here, hold onto me."   
  
Z takes Connor's closer hand and places it on the outside of his knelt down leg. It's a good method; Connor doesn't have much way to keep himself still against the motions otherwise. The ground offers little purchase.  
  
"Anyway, the bridge, I mean... nice view."

Connor tightens his grip on Z's knee, doing whatever he can to brace himself because he doesn't want to have to do this again.

Z lines up the joint and pushes - hard. The motion is strong, certain, and necessarily unapologetic, no hint of hesitancy, because holding back even out of compassion would only draw this out.  
  
Connor will look back later and respect him for it.

While his sensors scream and his body adjusts, Connor tries to hang onto the words Z is saying.  
  
"It's got those few little walkways nearby, you know... can see Canada easily... lights up at night... nice view... nice view..."  
  
Nice view huh used to come here a lot before before

Connor is jostled around as Z adjusts him for the other leg. He moves quickly but doesn't rush.   
  
He can hear Z continuing, but he sounds far away. "I have my android walk my dog there sometimes, since I live pretty close."

Tears sting Connor's eyes. He squeezes them shut and opens them again. Clouds above him; fire everywhere else, the center of the flame his left thigh.  
  
He wants to tell Z to wait, just wait a minute, but he doesn't.  
  
"There's a little playground there, too."

The playground. The playground Connor was staring at the playground it was in the backdrop the whole time behind Hank behind the bench  
  
"Last one."  
  
The right leg snaps - no, CRASHES into place. The feel and the sound of it ripples through Connor's body and echoes in his ears like a

gunshot  
  
Connor cries out, back arching up from the ground. He tries to curl in on himself but his legs are stiff, still almost dead but slowly filling with his life as a connection is established between mind and body.  
  
"Okay. Okay. We're done."

Connor's jaw trembles, and he inhales deeply, and it shudders throughout his entire body as he releases it. It feels good, so he does it again. Yes, it - it feels good to distribute the pain through himself like this, to give it somewhere to go, to dilute it with a breath.

His hand and Z's are locked together. Connor does not know if Z took his hand to comfort him, as humans often do, or if Connor is the one who took Z's hand. Neither of them let go.  
  
"Jesus. You gonna live?"  
  
There is that word again - well, the root of it. Alive. Live. Life.

Connor does in fact feel very alive right now. Alive isn't always pleasant - in fact, so far, it has been almost anything but.  
  
He is glad for it anyway. That is the one constant in an unending line of variables in his code. He wants to live.  
  
"Yes."

"Are you okay?"  
  
Yes. No. Somehow that is a much more difficult question to answer. Connor has no idea if he is okay. The pain in his limbs is fading. The sound of his new right leg being slammed into place still echoes loudly in his mind. There was a gun. There was a gun.

Connor lies there until he stops shaking, until the errors go away. Z helps him into the pair of pants he found before. They are both quiet.  
  
"The bridge seems important to you," Z says after a while. "It isn't far. I could take you over there."  
  
"No," Connor says at once. "...No. I don't want to go there." He tests out his limbs and props himself up. "Thank you, though. I appreciate the offer."  
  
"Yeah. Well. You got somewhere to go?"  
  
"I..." He wants to go to Hank, but he wants to go to the Hank he remembers saving on the roof. He wants to go to Hank who has warmth and affection in his eyes. He doesn't want to go to Hank at Riverside Park.  
  
The first time Connor died, it was falling from the roof in August. The second time, it was getting hit by a car chasing a deviant. The third time-

"No," Connor says, and he can picture it now, Hank's gun. "I... I don't think I do."  
  
Hank doesn't want anything to do with him.  
  
"Ah, Jesus, why'd I ask." Z sighs. "Look, I can't offer you much more than one night, but I got a sofa..."  
  
"It's fine," Connor says. "But thank you."

Connor knows for sure now. He doesn't want to think about it anymore.  
  
"Do you have a pen?" Connor asks. "Write down my model and serial number from my jacket." Android serial numbers can be dialed on a phone. He knows someone like Z would already know this.  
  
"...Why?"

"You clearly came here to learn something. I would like to help you do so. It's the least I can do."  
  
"Look, kid, if it's going to hurt you, I can't do it anyway."  
  
Connor shrugs. "Maybe there are alternatives. The invitation is open."  
  
Z asks, "What you gonna do now?"

"I'm not sure," Connor replies, smiling sadly. "But I do want to see what's happened over the last three months since I ended up here. Then maybe I'll have a better idea."  
  
"Okay, well." Z rises. He helps Connor do the same. Connor doesn't think he needs it, but his legs are weak.

"Thank you again for your help," Connor says. "I'm very fortunate you stumbled across me tonight."  
  
Z snorts. "Takes character to say that after I've been torturing you for an hour. I knew you were weird." A pause. "You got a name?"

As they finish working their way around android parts and out of the junkyard, he glances over at Z and replies, "Connor. My name is Connor."

-

Connor does go to the Ambassador Bridge, but he goes alone.  
  
He's standing at the railing halfway between Detroit and Ontario, looking back towards Detroit. He never went out onto the bridge the first time - he and Hank only watched it at a distance, from Riverside Park.

Connor recalls being curious about the view from the actual bridge.

(Perhaps, he thinks now, he had been right on the precipice of WANT, that night, hovering somewhere close to deviancy simply from a nice view.)

But Hank had been very preoccupied that night. He was angry, grieving, drunk. It isn't likely Hank would have cared what Connor wanted. And who was Connor to say he should have? It was Hank who was burdened, not Connor. Connor was a machine with no grief nor burden to his name.

Still - it was just a bridge. It would have been asking very little of Hank to go there. Could he have asked? Would Hank have obliged?  
  
At the time, it never occurred to Connor that he could go to the bridge himself. Alone. That maybe when Hank finally slept that night, he could return. Just because he wanted to. It wouldn't have served the mission, but he COULD have.

He had a body that functioned, back then. A body that was pristine, new, undamaged. He could have done whatever he wanted.

Connor spent three months in an android junkyard unable to move. It's almost funny to him now that he didn't think he had a choice before. That he thought he had to go where Hank went, do as Hank said, as the DPD said, as Cyberlife said.

He had thought he had to accept what happened instead of taking the gun out of Hank's hands.  
  
He’s still getting used to the idea that maybe he always had a choice - or at least, far more of a choice than he had in the junkyard, reduced to nothing more than a torso and a head.  
  
He had so much, and he hadn't known what to do with it.

At the very least, it's nice to something with it now. To stand here on this bridge without anyone having told him he could or could not.  
  
After a while, he does walk back down. It's about two-thirds of a mile back to Detroit, and then some as he makes his way to the park.

It's odd being at Riverside Park alone. Neither he nor Hank were exactly happy when they came here the first time, but somehow Connor is even more unhappy now. Even when Hank wasn't happy, at least he seemed to want Connor with him. That is, right up until he... well, didn't.

The gunshot echoes in his head. It seems to be inexplicably tied to that night he met Z, just over a week ago now. Inexplicably tied to the sound of Connor being violently pieced together.

Of course, it wasn't that Z was violent. It was the nature of attaching limbs to a living being that was violent. The memories are strong and grim, bringing with them a shadow of the very real pain Connor knows he felt.  
  
He doesn't know why it hurt. Only that it did.

But he also knows those memories could be a lot worse. Even in those moments, he had the sense that he was safe with Z, stranger though he was. (He wishes he was that safe with Hank.)

And he knows still that those memories could easily have never come to pass, and wouldn't that be worse still? Lying motionless in that yard, nothing with which to occupy himself, until his thirium regulator finally stopped working? Yes - that undoubtedly would be worse.

Connor's right arm - the one that is from an older model, barely compatible with him - aches as it swings with his walking. It isn't just the joint, but the entire thing. There is a tingling that works its way up and down the limb, all the way to his fingertips. Connor's HUD offers information about paresthesia - pins and needles - but just as with post-traumatic stress and effects of isolation, it is a human condition. He is not human.  
  
He does understand now a little better than he did before that he is _alive_.

But that isn't going to help him with this foreign sensation in his arm, and he certainly isn't going to have it replaced. Even if that night Z found him was a better alternative to being left there, he never wants to feel anything like that again.

Androids everywhere are still fighting for their freedom. He wonders if Hank ever figured out what side he was on. It should be obvious; Hank clearly decided he didn't like androids. But no - that wasn't the case.

Hank had been defensive of those Traci models, after all. Hank acted as though they were people.  
  
So... maybe it was just Connor that Hank didn't like. Connor that Hank resented enough to pull the trigger.  
  
He wonders what he did that made Hank feel that way about him. Has he forgotten?

Perhaps he isn't stuck unmoving in the yard anymore, but Connor is still very much alone.

-  
  
In the end, he gets another cab to Hank's house, because he needs to understand. He needs to know what went wrong.

Connor got so used to nothingness in the junkyard that he forgets he has access to everything he needs again. He checks the time.  
  
It's Friday, February 18, 2039. Slightly past 7:00 in the evening.  
  
If Hank hasn't changed in the last few months, there is a 78% chance he is drunk.

Connor doesn't make an event of it. He exits the cab. Walks up to the house. Jabs his finger into the doorbell and shatters the silence before he can talk himself out of it, before he can run any other preconstructions.

There is no answer.  
  
After a minute passes, Connor checks the front window. The house is a mess; far, far worse than it was when he was here in November, and it had been a mess then. There are beer cans and whiskey bottles everywhere. Nets of dog fur on the unvacuumed floors.

The chance that Hank is intoxicated climbs to 94%. The chance that he is dead - factoring in his prior game of Russian Roulette and the way alcohol exacerbates his suicidal tendencies - is 3%. That leaves another measly 3% chance that anything about this will go well.

Hank's car is in the driveway. Sumo is inside the house and in good health.  
  
Hank has to be here.  
  
Connor goes back to the door and raps on it hard. The pain in his right arm flares up with the impact; he switches to his left hand and knocks some more.

Connor wants to call to Hank, to let Hank know who he is. The only thing keeping him from doing so is that he doesn't know whether that would make Hank more or less likely to answer the door.  
  
He is just about to go around the side of the house (like before) when the door opens.

Relief floods Connor's system because yes, Hank is alive, Hank is here.  
  
It doesn't last long, because Hank is... not well.  
  
His waistline and his beard have thickened. His face is red and ruddy; a dead giveaway of increased alcohol consumption. His eyes are also red, and Connor can't tell if it's exhaustion or if Hank has been crying recently.   
  
Hank just - stares at him. Stares like he is seeing a ghost.  
  
Connor supposes that from Hank's perspective, that isn't far from the case.

Hank stares some more and finally says, "No."  
  
Connor didn't expect to feel so fragile. Or perhaps it's Hank who is fragile. It feels very much as though one of them has the other in their hands right now, and Connor isn't sure who.

"No," Hank says again. His tone is dark, angry - and a little pleading. "Not this again. You're dead."  
  
Connor's jaw works. He should have figured out what to say in the cab. "I..." He needs to speak very carefully. "I understand it seems that way."

Hank has not slammed the door in his face yet.  
  
Connor decides he needs to keep that from happening because Hank's body language suggests it is only a matter of time.  
  
"Lieutenant," he says quietly. "...Hank. I just - I just want us to talk. You can go first, if you'd like."

Hank's face tightens and Connor knows he has made the wrong decision.  
  
It's... familiar, isn't it? Having made the wrong decision with Hank. Straddling a line, trying to figure out which side of it is right and good and gentle, only to realize he has gotten it all wrong again.

"This some kinda fuckin' joke?" Hank demands. "You're - Connor's DEAD!"  
  
"Please," Connor says, showing his hands. He didn't come here intending to beg, but it hurts. It hurts too much to let Hank close the door in his face. He'll do anything. He's so tired of hurting.

Hank's glare doesn't go away, but it - it changes shape somehow. His eyes are wide and his posture is tense, defensive. Scared. Hank is scared.  
  
Hank is scared too.  
  
"Please," Connor says again. "Let me explain."

Part of him thinks it’s Hank who should want to explain. But Connor will offer his explanation first, if that’s what it takes. Connor still knows the part of himself that's designed to keep the peace. He isn't sure if it's of him, anymore, but he still knows how to use it.

Hank's hand is on the door, and his body is shifted in a way so as to not let Connor wedge himself in. Hank is not going to invite him inside.  
  
It's February. There is snow in the ground. Connor is cold. It makes his old-model right arm ache.  
  
But he knows Hank doesn't know that.

Connor would like to tell him. He would like to tell Hank that he is cold, that he hurts, that he is scared, that he doesn't know what to do. Just like he wishes he would have told Hank he wanted to see the bridge.  
  
...Now isn't the time. He can't risk it.

"Okay." Hank's voice is distant and noncommittal. "Let's hear it."  
  
"They didn't send another Connor," Connor said, "if that's what you were worried about. I'm-"  
  
Hank laughs, bitter and angry. "They sure fuckin' did."

"I... what?"  
  
"RK900. Sent him in after they decommissioned Connor. Fuckin' weird gray eyes."  
  
"What?" Here is another new kind of pain. "They did? He's... at the DPD?"  
  
"Sure is. But I fuckin' refused to work with any more androids."  
  
Connor looks away.  
  
"So. What are you? Huh?"

This was a mistake. He should have known. He knew he was decommissioned, after all. Of course they would replace him. He failed.  
  
He failed. That he is deviant is a testament to that.

"I'm not some new model," Connor pushes out. "I'm RK800. And maybe I'm not the very first RK800 you worked with, but that's - just my body. It's still me. Connor."  
  
Hank's hand on the door loosens. He looks Connor up and down. His eyes finally settle at Connor's chest.

Connor goes on, desperate to fill Hank's hesitation with his own certainty. "We worked together, Hank. After you-- after I died, I was taken apart and left in a junkyard. Somebody found me and pieced me back together. I - I can show you."

He doesn't wait for Hank to reply. He wrestles his right arm out of his jacket and pulls aside the collar of his shirt to show him. It's an old enough model that the seam where the parts connect is clearly visible through the two slightly different types of skin.

Hank's eyes go from Connor's serial number to Connor's arm joint. He appears momentarily transfixed, like he is entertaining the alternative reality that Connor is presenting him for the first time.  
  
He reaches to touch the shoulder joint and Connor pulls back.

"Don't," Connor says, and he's already angry with himself because he can see the question in Hank's eyes; can see Hank wanting an explanation for his behavior.  
  
True to form, Hank asks, "Why not?"  
  
He wasn't going to tell Hank, but here it is, being pulled out of him. "It hurts."

Hank's hand dangles in the air close to Connor's shoulder like it's being suspended there by a string. "What d'you mean, it hurts?"  
  
Connor sighs, frustrated all at once. "I mean it HURTS, Hank! Okay?"  
  
Somehow that's what does it.

"Connor?" The bitterness on Hank's face starts to break apart. "'S really you?"  
  
"Yes, Hank. It's really me. And you're hardly more recognizable to me right now than I am to you."  
  
Hank swallows, visibly uncomfortable at this.  
  
He didn’t mean for the comment to hurt.

He wonders how many things Hank has said or done that Hank didn't mean to hurt. But that isn't something Connor can determine, and even if it is, Hank hurt him regardless, didn’t he?

Hank's hand is still up. "Here." He gestures to Connor's collar, which Connor has since let go of. "Lemme see."  
  
Connor gently closes his hand around Hank's wrist. "There's nothing you can do for it.”  
  
But there is something Hank can do. Just not for his arm. "Hank," Connor says. "Can I please come inside? It's... it's very cold out here."  
  
Hank looks at him, dumbstruck for a second. Then he steps out, puts an arm around Connor's back - not touching the arm that Connor told him was hurting - and guides him into the house.

And given what Connor knows about Hank, it makes perfect sense.  
  
Given what Connor knows about Hank, it also makes no sense at all.  
  
Connor finds that he isn't as glad for Hank's compassion as he should be. Not when he can't reconcile it with - with everything else.

But he has a warm place to stay the night, for the first time in a long time, and for now, that is going to have to be enough.

-

Connor wonders whether he is supposed to offer more.   
  
More explanation. An apology for his absence. An apology for his presence.   
  
Hank has finally taken him into the house and he can't tell for sure if he has held up his end of the deal - or if there was a deal to begin with.

He settles for, "Thank you, Hank."  
  
"Yeah, well. Guess if it's really you..." He trails off. Dismisses the thought with a graceless swish of one hand. "What the fuck am I doin'. Can barely read your jacket numbers."

"Maybe you should get some rest," Connor says. "Sleep it off. We can talk more tomorrow. I could..." It's Connor's turn to pause.  
  
"You could what?"

He was going to say he could tidy up around here, but learned enough about Hank to know that will not be met with a positive response. He doesn't want to embarrass or anger Hank further. That wouldn't help anything.  
  
"I could go into stasis. I'm admittedly quite weak right now."

Connor thinks it's an excuse until he says it. He IS weak, and the pain in his right arm seems to be transmitting to other parts of his body. He isn't sure if its severity is increasing or if his system is functioning sub-optimally enough that it just _seems_ more severe.

"Connor," Hank says, and he's shaking his head dismissively, but warmth thaws the bitterness in his tone for the first time. "What're you doing here?"  
  
After a moment, Connor replies, "I don't know."  
  
"That why your light's red, huh? Am I stressing you out that much?"

Hank is stressing him out, yes, but Connor's light is red because his software has failed to categorize the pain in his arm as anything he is supposed to be feeling. It doesn't make sense, it isn't of him, and yet it continues to gnaw at him.

Connor is deviant. More than that, he is a prototype. He has a great deal of sophisticated physical and psychological features. Prototypes are meant to be test runs. Who is to say Cyberlife didn't equip him with features that were not only useful, but experimental as well?

Connor doesn't know if this is the case. But it's always helped him to rationalize things. To remind himself of the possibility that there is a reasonable explanation why this is happening, why he feels what he feels.  
  
He doesn't know how to make it okay for himself otherwise.

At some point, Connor reached up and held his own arm. He didn't mean to; he certainly doesn't want Hank to see. He was too lost in thought to notice.  
  
Hank certainly notices. "Hey."  
  
"I'm fine," Connor says at once. "I'll be okay. I'm sure it's nothing a diagnostic won't fix."

It's a blatant lie, but he knows Hank won't know the difference, not when he's getting all technical about it.  
  
As expected, Hank doesn't challenge it. He does, however, ask: "Do you need to sleep to run a diagnostic?"

"No," Connor says. "It facilitates the process, but no, I don't strictly need to. Why?"  
  
"C'mere."  
  
"Why?" Connor asks again, although he does venture a few steps closer, meeting Hank in the living room.  
  
"Jesus, just do it. We're gonna try a little somethin'."

"Hank, I really don't think that will be..."  
  
Hank groans loudly, drowning out Connor's protests.  
  
When he gets close enough for his sensors to pick up on Hank's breath, Connor notices that Hank is not quite as intoxicated as he thought.

He has consumed a high quantity of alcohol, but a lot of it was earlier in the evening, and Hank's tolerance has gone up since the last time Connor has seen him, so it isn't affecting him as much.

That isn't exactly good, but he feels better knowing that Hank isn't too far from himself. It removes some, but not all, of Connor's uncertainty.

Hank goes to the kitchen. Connor stays where he is in the living room, watching as Hank rummages through a drawer and digs out what looks like a small, flimsy pillow. Hank throws it in the microwave, then goes down the hall for something else.

As a minute goes by, Connor can pick up the smell of what is being heated in the microwave.  
  
Rice.  
  
Connor has never had any reason to know why one might heat up a cloth bag with rice in, so Hank's behavior is confounding to him until he looks it up.  
  
It's a heating pack.

Hank comes back with a washcloth. When the microwave beeps, he wraps the small pillow in it.  
  
"Hey, it helps people," Hank says when he sees Connor looking at him in confusion. "You never know."  
  
Connor sits down on the couch. Hank sits so that he can face him.

It all feels a little like playing pretend.

Connor wants to ask why Hank shot him. Why Hank's drinking more. At what point, precisely, the two of them got it so wrong.   
  
He wants to ask so much and he doesn't understand why none of these things are occurring to Hank when they are so strongly at the front of his mind.

If nothing else, Hank seems to recognize there is a barrier between them. He sits there beside Connor, one leg tucked under himself so he can face Connor a little easier, but Hank's still holding the rice bag, kneading it idly.

Connor removes his jacket. "I don't know if this will help me the same as it would a human."  
  
"If it doesn't, we can try somethin' else," Hank said. "You look fuckin' miserable."  
  
He is fucking miserable.  
  
"Here," Hanks says and scoots closer, still uncharacteristically hesitant. Hank gently places the rice bag on Connor's shoulder, over his shirt. Hank has to hold it there; the joint, naturally, is closer to the outside of the shoulder than the crook of the neck, so the bag would slide off otherwise.  
  
Connor hears himself let out a sigh of relief.

It feels... Connor doesn't know how to categorize it, because he has never felt pleasure before. But his entire body relaxes slightly, and he is relieved, and the pain lessens.  
  
It feels good. This is what good feels like. He is glad to know it.

Well - at least, his arm feels better.  
  
Connor doesn't know how to read Hank.  
  
Is this warmth and gentleness and caution meant as an apology for his anger at the door? For his anger at the bridge?   
  
Then again, maybe Hank isn’t trying to make up for anything. Connor knows he is missing memories. Maybe he had done something to warrant Hank's previous behavior towards him. He had been a machine. Why should Hank have to apologize for hurting something that couldn't be hurt?  
  
Still - he wishes he could just _know_. Whatever the truth is, Connor wants to know.

He hates that Hank is silent. He hates that _he_ is silent. He can't bring himself to say any of what he came here to say, ask any of what he came here to ask. He's scared and, once again, he wonders if perhaps Hank is scared too.

It takes a few minutes to parse out his feelings, but it dawns on Connor that this feels - wrong. It feels wrong to accept Hank's kindness and affection when he doesn't know what kind of place it is coming from or how it is meant.  
  
He doesn't know, and it isn't fair.

He reaches across his body and puts his hand over the rice bag, carefully avoiding Hank's. "I've got it."  
  
Hank looks up at him, then away again. "Yeah. Okay."  
  
"It does help," Connor adds. "Thank you. It was a good idea."

"Still not very good at letting people help you, are you?"  
  
It startles a solitary laugh out of Connor. It's not exactly a happy laugh, but he tries to find some warmth for Hank anyway. "That would make two of us, wouldn't it?"  
  
Hank laughs too. "I don't need any help."

"You do," Connor says quietly, meaning it from the bottom of his heart. He wishes he understood why Hank got worse.  
  
But then, if Connor is honest with himself, he's pretty sure he is the reason. He doesn't know why, but he feels it deep within him; a core of dread.

"Shut the fuck up for five seconds and I'll let you tell me alllll about me tomorrow," Hank mutters, smiling. "Tonight, we're talking about you. Capiche?"  
  
Hank's attempt at lighthearted aggression falls flat. It reaches for a familiarity that just isn't there anymore.

...And that's just it, isn't it?

  
There is nothing here anymore. He is trying to hold onto something that he doesn’t even have, something that has long since shattered, and the pieces cut as he holds.

It doesn't matter if this goes poorly, because he and Hank are not friends. He is not risking Hank's friendship. The only thing Connor will lose is his own meek little pearl of hope, and hope - well, what is hope other than an empty human sentiment?

"I can't do this." Connor tosses the bag on the coffee table. It takes its relief with it. Fitting, really.  
  
Hank reaches for him. Touches his forearm. "Hey. Can't do what?"  
  
It builds alongside the renewed pain in his arm, and he looks into the eyes of the stranger beside him.

"Your house is a mess, Hank," Connor says. " _You’re_ a mess. You need help. You need change. You need – _something,_ and I'm worried about you. That's all so - so obvious to me, and yet..."  
  
The anger and defensiveness returns to Hank features like it never left. But Hank keeps it at bay, just looking at him, tense, waiting. Waiting for Connor to speak.  
  
"Can you tell that something's wrong with me, Hank?" It's an honest question. "Can you tell?"

"I mean, aside from the obvious, I guess you seem a little off, but..."  
  
"You guess I seem a little off," Connor repeats, sighing. "I don't know what it would feel like to be human in that junkyard, but my database kept offering me suggestions about how not to go insane."

Oh, no. This isn't how he wanted to do this. It's too much, it's too emotional. It's not how he handles things. But he can't stop it. He can't make himself stop talking.  
  
"And when that man gave me limbs again and replaced my missing pieces, it felt like--"

Connor doesn't know what it felt like; he has no basis for comparison. He goes through the catalog of his own reactions in his memory database. He measures his own behavior against that of a human's. He accounts for the frayed state of his software, his mind, since then.

"It felt like I was being - tortured. At one point, I lost time because my software couldn't handle the sensations. I - I lost consciousness. He helped me, and I'm grateful, but... I would have never been there in the first place if I hadn't - if I hadn't died."

He's a mess. He needs to stop talking. This isn't safe, putting everything out there on the line like this; saying what he is feeling right as he realizes he's feeling it. Even humans have a filter, never mind _him._  
  
"If I hadn't died," Connor repeats.

Hank draws a shaking breath and says, "Oh, Connor."  
  
And when Hank reaches for him again, tries to hold him, Connor doesn't know what to do. He shifts his weight away.  
  
"I thought," Connor whispers, "for a short time, that we could be friends."

"Connor," Hank murmurs, soft and sad. "What the fuck makes you think we can't?"  
  
Connor can't look at him. "I know - I _know_ \- that I was just a machine, and you couldn't have realized I truly experienced it, but what you did that night..."

"Honey, what'd I do?" Hank asks, and Connor can hear it in his voice; the need to make it better.  
  
Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. Hank should know.  
  
He makes himself meet Hank's eyes. They're so blue against the red of his face, so concerned, so earnest. It's the Hank that Connor wishes he knew. And that's the only version of Hank who might have the right words to say.

"You shot me," Connor says, the words riding a shaky breath.  
  
He waits.

Waits for Hank to get defensive and say he was just a fucking machine back then. Waits for Hank to say he was drunk and didn't really think through what he was doing. Waits for Hank to remind him they'd just send another body for Connor to inhabit.  
  
He knows that Hank was not well back then, either. He thinks he can understand all of these possible reasons for Hank's behavior, if Hank will just tell him the truth.  
  
That's all he wants, at least for now.

"Connor," Hank says very slowly, voice dangerously low, though dangerous for whom, Connor doesn't know. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Connor's world narrows into a tight tunnel. Everything in his peripheral vision looks like GPS coordinates or preconstructions, because it seems that all his resources have focused in on Hank.

For a moment, it's like he's floating, and floating in this instance feels a lot like falling. A lot like the bottom just dropped out.   
  
Hank's expression mirrors his but it lacks the gravity of understanding.

"You shot me," Connor repeats, and it doesn't feel like it should bear repeating nor further explanation. People don't generally need context for such defined events.  
  
"Connor," Hank says cautiously, "let's just slow down for a second."

"Won't you at least admit it?" Connor hopes he doesn't sound angry. He's mostly just scared. "I'm not saying I don't understand. There's no way you could have known what I was. It wouldn't be fair of me to hold that against you now. I just can't leave it hanging between us."

"Okay - I don't think you're thinking straight." Hank's lip curls up in something like disgust. Hank is defensive, but he can't hide the dread that's bloomed in his eyes, not from Connor.

Connor can see how scared Hank is – was _designed_ to see how scared Hank is, designed to see the fractures in the lie that give someone away.

Scent is a strong memory association for humans; it must be for Connor, as well, because it's only being in Hank's house that has helped him remember how drunk Hank was that night at the bridge. And that, in turn, is what helps him piece it together: "You don't remember."

"YOU don't remember!" Hank says through his teeth.  
  
"Really?" Maybe Connor is angry. "You're going to sit here and lie to me?"  
  
"I think I'd fucking remember if I killed someone!"  
  
"Would you?" Connor asks. "You didn't see me as someone. _I_ didn't see me as someone."

"I did," Hank says. "You're wrong. I did see you. I knew you were alive."  
  
That just takes Connor right back to square one. "Then why did you put a gun against my head and-"  
  
"Because I wanted YOU to see it, asshole!" Hank bellows, and it's angry, but his voice cracks.

Hanks face is reddening further and his eyes are shining with unshed tears.  
  
Connor slows himself down. Starts processing things by fractions of seconds, and fractions of those fractions.

Hank is angry, but Hank is worn down. Vulnerable. He has Hank in a state where maybe he can get Hank to help him understand. Screaming at each other isn't helping. But if they can just - help each other understand...

"Why?" Connor asks quietly. "Why did you want me to see that I was alive?"  
  
"Because-" Hank's mouth tightens into a line and for a moment Connor is sure he has made the wrong choice again.

Then Hank's face changes, as if he is examining this question for the first time; as if Connor asking it is the first time he has asked it of himself.  
  
After a minute, Hank answers him.

"We'd been," his voice comes out layered with hoarseness and grief. "We'd been talking about Cole, right?" He doesn't wait for Connor to answer. "You saw his photo in the kitchen earlier in the night. I knew you did. And something about that, something about knowing you knew..."

Connor waits. Waiting is painful. He wants to encourage; to comfort. But before that he wants to know.  
  
"If you were alive, it meant androids were alive. If androids were alive, it meant..." Hank's throat works. "It means my boy didn't die alone."

There's a pause, and Connor takes a chance. "Hank... Cole would never have known it wasn't a human." It's unlikely Cole was conscious, but Connor knows he would be missing some human nuance to say that out loud.  
  
From the look Hank gives him, he's missed some nuance anyway.

"Hank, I'm-"  
  
"Either way, meant maybe the android who operated on him actually gave a shit, right?" Hank makes a sound Connor doesn't know how to categorize; it seems there is not a large margin between a bitter laugh and a bitter cry. "I wanted to know my boy had the best chance he was ever gonna get an' I was... I was looking for those answers in you," Hank says. "In how you treated deviants, humans... how you treated me."  
  
"Did you get them?" Connor asks. "The answers you were looking for?"

Hank shakes his head. "Not at the time."  
  
It's the answer Connor expected, and he wonders if this is it; the big thing he has been missing, the reason Hank despised him so much.  
  
"Kinda showed up on my doorstep tonight, though, didn't they?"

Has everything he has been through led to this? Him showing up at Hank's house and Hank getting the answers he so badly needed before?  
  
"I..." Connor pauses. He doesn't want to make this about him when Hank has just trusted him with a very personal piece of his grief. But he - he needs to say it. Regardless of what's right or what's productive or what's kind or what Hank needs, Connor needs to say it. "I suppose I was looking for my own answers at the time."  
  
"Yeah," Hank says. "Guess you were."

"Why shoot me?" Connor asks. "What was that going to accomplish for you when you knew I would come back?"  
  
"I keep telling you," Hank says. "I didn't fuckin' shoot you."  
  
"Hank..."  
  
"Look, my memory's foggy, all right?" The defensiveness is back. "But I know that."

"You know, or it's what you wish you knew?" Connor asks.  
  
Hank gets up. Retrieves his car keys from the counter. "You don't even know-" He curses. "You don't even know."

The jangle of Hank's car keys is a distinct sound. Connor hasn't heard it in a while. In fact, he's pretty sure the last time he heard it was

at Riverside Park and there's a bullet hole in the front of the car the car was in the path of Hank's bullet (when had they turned around?) everything is dark he thought he was safe Hank changed his mind

Connor stands too, bolting for the front door. How hadn't he seen it on the way in? He hadn't remembered that detail at the time. Hadn't had a reason to look--  
  
"Connor!" Panic weighs down Hank's voice. "CONNOR!"  
  
He has to pause enough to yank open the door. Hank grabs his arm.

"Connor, goddamn it!" Hank gets enough leverage on him to push him back against the wall adjacent to the front door. "What is your problem?"

"You already know I know, but you don't want me to point out proof? Don't want to face it, Hank? I have made this as easy for you as I possibly can! All I asked is for you to tell me what happened! Why is that so hard?"  
  
"Because I am telling you, you're not going to get it."

"Yeah, I suppose that's a chance you take when you point a _gun_ at someone's-"

Connor flinches and his vision gets staticky and white at the edges. Hank's fingers are digging into his increasingly sensitive arm. It hurts far, far more than it did yesterday or the day before.

Immediately, Hank lets go of him. "Jesus," he says, stepping back. "Oh god, fuck me. Connor..."  
  
Connor turns half into the wall, massaging the place where Hank's fingers gripped him. It doesn’t hurt because of Hank’s hold; it hurts because _it hurts._ It just took someone touching him to know how bad.

There’s something wrong. His arm isn’t going to get better.

  
What sometimes happens when you combine an incompatible part with a piece of machinery is that it breaks altogether. The same is true of humans; blood types not being right, organs being rejected. Connor realizes all at once that he - a machine meant to mimic humans - is probably not that much different.  
  
He can't tell whether his body is rejecting the arm or the arm is damaging his body.  
  
"Connor?" Hank says quietly. "You said you had someone fix you?"

"Yes," he replies, then remembers he and Z exchanged numbers.  
  
He realizes something else, then; something that absolutely hasn't occurred to Hank and will probably make him regret bringing this up.  
  
"...I wonder if he could also fix my memory."

Hank has that dark, dreadful look in his eyes again, then it leaves him at once. All the anger, the fear, the defensiveness - it just falls out of his posture. He looks so tired, so sad.  
  
"Jesus, what a fucking mess."

Hank is sad. Connor thinks he feels the makings of understanding somewhere within, but he can't pick out enough of the pieces to form a picture of why.  
  
"I'm sorry, Hank," he says. "I wish things were different."  
  
He means the situation, but Hank turns it into something else. "Yeah, me fucking too. Fuck. Two guys with memory problems and we can't even trust each other enough to say nobody fucking died."  
  
Connor tries to keep his tone soft. "So you're saying you know you don't remember that night perfectly?"

"I never said I did," Hank reminds him. "Listen, Connor, I'm done repeating myself for the night, okay? You're gonna believe what you gotta believe just like I apparently am, and that's as good as we're gonna get right now."

Connor doesn't believe - he knows. He remembers everything short of being dead, because death is impossible to remember, and it was at that point his consciousness would have been uploaded into a new body.  
  
But he'll let Hank call it belief if that's what he needs to do. He’s tired, too.  
  
"Your arm okay?" Hank asks, urging him back to the living room.  
  
"No," Connor says honestly. "No, Hank. I don't think it is."  
  
Hank sighs, long and heavy. "I wanna ask you something. And you can say no if you want, but… do you wanna just... I don't know, try and forget all this shit and just pretend things went better than they did? Hell, let's crash on the couch and watch the fuckin' game or something."  
  
Connor is half a breath away from saying he doesn't want to pretend. But that isn't strictly true, is it? Besides, if what they've been doing the last several minutes is 'real,' it certainly doesn't feel like it. It feels disingenuous and dishonest and uncomfortable.  
  
He wonders if what Hank calls 'pretend' has something more to offer.

"I could tell you the score right now, if you wanted," Connor says. "There'd be no need to watch it."  
  
"Oh, Jesus, live a little, would you?" But Hank's smiling, and even if it's pretend, it feels like something an exchange they might have had at some point, on a better day.

He watches Hank go into the kitchen to get himself - some water, Connor notes with relief. The car keys are thrown back on the counter. When Hank turns from the sink and towards the living room again, he grimaces.  
  
It takes Connor a moment to notice what Hank has noticed. And then he wonders why he didn't notice sooner. Maybe because his attention was so squarely focused on Hank himself all this time that there was no room for anything else.  
  
The gun is on the kitchen table.  
  
"Is that... is that what you were doing before I got here?"

"Jesus, if I did it that much, I'd be dead a dozen times over. 'S just where the damn thing got put last. In case you haven't noticed, I haven't cleaned my house in a while."

Nonetheless, Hank looks disproportionately uncomfortable. He grabs the gun and starts down the hall, presumably to stash it out of sight.  
  
"Hank," Connor says.  
  
Halfway down the hallway, Hank throws a glance over his shoulder. "Just getting rid of this, one sec."  
  
"Hank, hold up a second."

Hank stops and turns to face him. They stand a few feet apart in the short corridor, and Connor grasps what nudged at him when Hank first picked up the gun.  
  
He is not afraid of Hank.  
  
"What?" Hank asks, looking irritable and self-conscious.

"Point it at me," Connor says.  
  
"...Fucking _what_?"  
  
He wants to remember the full context; the details he's missing about what led Hank to raise his gun. He also wants to know if Hank will do it. Who Hank was then, who Hank is right now.  
  
"Your gun. Point your gun at me."

Hank scowls at him. "Go fuck yourself, Connor."  
  
"It might help me remember. Isn't that what you want?"  
  
"Oh, _now_ you're having trouble remembering? Now you've decided you want something outta me? Don't be a piece of shit."

Hank unloads the gun, throws it into the bedroom, and squares up with Connor. "What do you really want? Huh? Because I know it isn't for me to hold a gun to your head."

As Hank’s questions always did, Connor was forced to step back from himself and consider. What did he want?  
  
"All night," Connor says, "I've been trying to make sense of what I know about you and what I thought I knew."  
  
"And all fuckin' night I have been trying to tell you."

Tell him. Is that where the problem is? In the telling? It certainly doesn't seem like speaking got them very far. Not when they don't know which version of that night happened. Not when Hank doesn't remember everything.  
  
Not when - if he's honest - Connor doesn't either.

He thinks of Hank gently pressing the rice bag to his aching shoulder earlier.  
  
Hank asking if they can pretend things are a little better between them than they are.  
  
"I'm sorry," Connor says, because suddenly, he is.

Even if just for this precise moment, Connor understands that regardless of who they were in November or who they will be tomorrow, they are who they are right now, and each of them gets to choose that.

Is there some slight chance, somewhere in all of this, that pretending would lead to something real?  
  
It isn't like they're going to talk to Z about his arm or his memory tonight. They have time. They have now. Perhaps, just for this sad Friday evening, they can be friends.

After all, Hank apparently doesn't despise him, and Connor - Connor feels strangely safe, despite everything.  
  
That isn't much of a foundation to build upon, but it's something.  
  
Connor doesn't know how to pretend, but then again, he doesn't quite know how to be real, either.

"Show me," Connor says. And he feels - so much more exposed, somehow, telling Hank to show him what he means than telling Hank to hold him at gunpoint. "Show me what it is you want from me."

"Connor, honey," Hank murmurs, closing the distance, closing the distance.  
  
He slides his arms up around Connor's back very gently and pulls him close, cradles Connor against him. Connor sinks into his touch, confused, exhausted, needy.  
  
"Just let me help."

"Help, how?" Connor mumbles into Hank's shirt.  
  
He feels Hank chuckle against him before they separate. "Come again?"  
  
"I said, how do you want to help?"  
  
"Jesus, I didn't exactly... humans don't always think through..."

Hank stammers for another few seconds, but Connor can see something dawning in his expression. So, as always, he waits.  
  
A couple awkward seconds later, Hank delivers. He's got a smile tugging one corner of his mouth. "You know what I been thinking about doing all night?"

And Connor smiles too, because no, he doesn't know, but for once he has asked Hank a question and Hank is answering it and he looks content to do so. "What's that?"

Hank guides him into the bathroom. He's got one arm around Connor's back, the other on Connor's closer arm as he faces them both towards the mirror, nearly resting his chin on the back of Connor's shoulder.  
  
"Here's your hint. No phoning a friend or asking the audience."

It doesn't take Connor long. "I'm a mess."  
  
"You fuckin' got it."  
  
Connor is - also very physically weak, operating on low power due to his condition, and in significant pain. He couldn't even fight back when Hank shoved him against the wall earlier.

His outfit is dirty. His body is dirty. He's covered in earth and rain and grime and dust and - hints of his own blood. Not all of it is obvious - he wiped down the visible parts of himself in a public bathroom after he got out of the junkyard.

But Hank has already seen Connor's bad arm, which was decidedly not very clean, and Hank knows what Connor is _supposed_ to look like better than anybody, and even without all that, Hank is observant.  
  
Connor figures this is probably assumed, but he feels the need to say it anyway.

"Hank, right now I don't think I am capable of-"  
  
"I _know_ ," Hank says, clearly having seen it coming. "That's why I'm saying, let me help."  
  
"I'm sorry. I've probably gotten your couch dirty."  
  
"This ain't got shit to do with the goddamn couch. Here."

Connor reaches up, starts to undo his buttons. Hank gets the hot water running.  
  
"Here, c'mere a sec, put your hand in."  
  
Connor does so. "It's... just a little too warm, I think."  
  
"Okay, give it a minute."

They get the water to the right temperature, which is good, but it also removes their excuse to put off the awkward part.  
  
That is - awkward, for multiple reasons.

Connor has a better idea of human dignity than before, for one thing. Also, he is now a sloppy collage of multiple models.  
  
He doesn't feel particularly pleasant to look at.

"Look, if it's gonna be that fucking agonizing for you..." Hank trails off, gesturing haphazardly to Connor's forehead.  
  
Ah. His LED is yellow.  
  
Before he can get a word in edgewise, Hank starts again: "Look. You're _still_ fuckin' prettier than I am."  
  
Connor hears himself laugh.

It's while he still has the feeling of laughter on his face that Hank comes close to him and eases him out of his shirt, being extra careful with the sensitive arm. Hank keeps one hand on the back of Connor's neck while Connor finishes undressing and climbs into the tub.

The water turns gray. Well. That's... a little embarrassing.  
  
Hank sits on the edge of the tub, runs his wet hand through Connor's hair, and says, "Hey, glad I'm not the only one who's been a slob these days."

Connor can find a laugh for that, too, because he knows that Hank knows he isn't a mess by choice. (Not that Hank is a mess by choice either. Not really. They were both struggling. They both still are.) If anything, the humor and sympathy and admiration he finds in Hank's eyes when he dares to meet them suggests the opposite. It looks for all the world that Hank knows exactly what he's been through.

Connor wants to take care of himself. To indicate to Hank that he can. That Hank helping him get this started was enough, and he will be fine in privacy now. Except that isn't true. He can barely function. Part of it is that he _really_ needs to go into stasis, more with each passing minute; part of it is that he is still weak, still broken.  
  
"This okay or too weird?" Hank asks.  
  
"It is weird," Connor admits. "But I think it's also okay."

"You, uh... what do you say we get you cleaned up?"  
  
"That's fine, Hank," Connor says. "But I may go into stasis in your tub if we don't make quick work of it."

It's interesting how easy it is to speak casually like this. How easy it is to give in to his own fatigue. How easy it is to pretend.  
  
If this is indeed pretend, then it's far, far more palatable than real. Connor feels like he could stay in pretend for a while.

"I'll be right back. Stay here."  
  
As if he's going to do much else. Connor rolls his eyes.  
  
It's interesting to Connor that the bath's soothing heat can be ignored, if he chooses to ignore it, while the pain in his arm cannot be ignored.  
  
Is sensation like this for humans, too?

Hank comes back a minute later in a t-shirt and boxer shorts. Connor doesn't need Hank to explain; Hank has changed into something he doesn't care about so that he doesn't have to worry about getting dirty.  
  
He also has a couple towels that he throws down over the bathroom rug. Connor says, "Hank, you're embarrassing me."  
  
"Maybe if you fuckin' showered more than once a year we wouldn't have that problem." Hank sits on the edge of the tub. "The hell you doing, anyway, slacking off in a junkyard for three months? Must be nice not having bills to pay."

Connor looks around himself to implicate Hank's house. "At least my junkyard was clean by comparison."  
  
It was a bit of gamble, but Hank laughs a full belly laugh, one that Connor can feel the breath from as Hank leans down towards him with a cloth. "Trust me, I'm thinkin' you're a little better off here."  
  
There's an implication in that statement, one that Connor hesitates to hope for.

And not just because he knows Hank isn't thinking that deeply, but because a couple hours ago, he was scared to walk up to Hank's door. This seems too far to come in precious few hours, and that robs the moment of some of its possible meaning.

"Let's get the bad arm out of the way so you can relax, yeah?"  
  
Connor tries to lift the arm. It's pins and needles with every motion, now, and an ache that won't leave.

It turns out that lying in a junkyard straddling the line of deviancy didn't take much power. Now that his body has multiple different model parts to supply, actions to process, and ongoing maintenance to complete, it's clear he isn't going to last. The right arm is making his power drain even more quickly, not just because the old model is sapping it like Hank's car guzzles gas, but because pain, too, takes processing power, and he can't turn it off.

Hank encloses a hand around his wrist and holds it up, using the washcloth in his other hand, rubbing it gently up and down Connor's arm.   
  
It's sensitive, but Hank is so gentle. He even stops, once. Connor doesn't ask him to, he just does.  
  
"Don't worry. I'm okay."

"'Course you are," Hank says. Connor notes he doesn't say it dubiously or dismissively; he actually sounds like he means it. "What's a little discomfort to someone like you, anyway? But you don't have to tough it out for me, Connor. I'm in no hurry, here. Okay?"

_'Someone like you.'_  
  
Connor didn't know he presented enough of an identity to be referred to as such. What is he like? What does Connor look like in Hank's eyes?  
  
It's the first time he sees himself from the outside in a way that isn't a preconstruction.

It's strange to visualize himself as someone who has a place in the world. Someone whose occupancy of space, time, and - demonstrably - another person's thoughts, is noticed and observed.  
  
Someone who possesses human qualities. Someone who is 'like' anything.

In any case, it sounds obvious once Hank says it: yes, toughing it out was precisely what Connor had been trying to do, wasn't it? He was still in the same mindset as in the yard; as he had been in all along. If something was unpleasant, it was his responsibility to adapt.

And with Z, it had been a necessity for his survival.  
  
That isn't the case here. Hank has just reminded him so.  
  
When they get his arm clean - or at least, clean enough - Hank slides his hand to Connor's before letting go.

He holds Connor's hand, turns it over in his own a few times. Looks at his faulty arm. "Just looks like more of you."

"The skin adapts to mine over time," Connor says, "so for the most part, it is. You can still see a slight difference where the parts touch, though, as I showed you earlier. If I was functioning optimally, I could fix it immediately, but as I am now, I can't spare the resources."

Hank rubs a thumb over the back of Connor's hand, his knuckles.  
  
"I'm sorry," Connor says, "but if you're going to hold my hand, could you hold the other one?"  
  
"Sorry," Hank echoes, letting go immediately.

"It's okay," Connor says, because Hank's face makes him feel like he needs to. "It isn't a big deal. You didn't hurt me. It's just very sensitive."  
  
Hank still looks flustered, but to his credit, he gets over it quickly.

Hank turns where he's sitting, putting one bare foot into the water, straddling the ceramic of the tub so he can get closer. Connor is handed a cloth and they work together.  
  
Connor doesn't get very far.

"Hank," he says, "It was meant to be a joke the first time I said it, but I'm afraid I may actually go into stasis in your tub."  
  
"You mean you're tired and you might doze a little while I get you cleaned up? You're allowed to do that. Ain't a fuckin' crisis, Connor."

He hadn't thought it was a crisis, per se, but it had to be at least a little inconvenient.  
  
"I mean, I can help you outta there if you want. I'm just saying."  
  
"It's fine," Connor says. "If you don't mind, then I don't. I do prefer being clean, and this does feel.. rather nice."

"Okay. Cool."   
  
Hank twists the cloth to wring out the moisture. Then he plops it back in the water, sloshes it around without looking at it, picks it out, and wrings out the moisture again. Connor finds himself fighting a smile. "Hank."

"What?" Hank asks defensively. "I don't know how this shit works with you androids, okay?"  
  
"A week ago, I had someone literally put my body back together. If you're trying to figure out how to ask if I'd like you to continue washing me, yes, I would."

So Hank does.  
  
He rinses the cloth out in the sink every few minutes, because the bathwater is toned gray. He puts one hand around Connor's back to hold him steady and washes Connor's chest and sides, his abdominal area, his other arm.

All Connor can do at this point is shift his weight to help; the one arm is useless now, and the rest of him is quickly following. A warning pops up in his HUD with a timer; he's going to go into stasis automatically in a few minutes if he doesn't induce it himself.

At first, it all comes away in satisfying streaks on the cloth. Neither of them know how much of a mess he is until there are big hand-sized stripes of cleanliness breaking up the grime. There's a lot of accumulation - Connor supposes three months in the elements will do that.

Hank tips him forward a little to reach his back. Connor's chin bumps against his chest before he can stop it.  
  
"Jesus, if you'd ask me what I thought I'd be doing this Friday, it wasn't gonna be taking care of a naked android nodding off in my goddamn tub."

Connor wants to say he's sorry for interrupting Hank's Friday night plans to drink himself into a stupor by himself. He doesn't think the words make it out of his mouth until a soft, low laugh rumbles out of Hank.

He's not sure at what point their jabs at each other lost their fire, but at some point they did. The laughter feels no more pretend than the yelling.  
  
Hank very gently runs the edge of the cloth in those places where his new joints connect.

He's cautious with the right arm. He's cautious with - all of it, Connor notes, and he likes how Hank minds those areas, because they are where foreign intrusions like dirt and particles would get into his sockets if not kept clean.

"My line of work, you kinda gotta know how to take care of people," Hank says. He sounds far away to Connor's audio processors.  
  
Connor suspects taking care of people doesn't mean giving them a bath, but he can appreciate the sentiment: giving people the aid they need.

Connor has less than three minutes. He runs a very superficial scan, knocking it down to two and a half minutes, but he is curious.  
  
The presence of foreign material on his exterior has been reduced significantly, rendering his hygiene approximately 72% of his norm. Not bad.

Hank props him up and runs his hands into Connor's hair.  
  
It's... silly. If Connor could use all his resources, he would be able to make his hair recede and put it back in place again, completely clean. His hair does not need to be shampooed.

But Connor can't do that right now. Hank is right to do this; Connor has no resources to devote to his hair.  
  
"Hank, don't you know you're supposed to shampoo first?" he means to ask, but he can no longer speak. His voice is offline.

As it turns out, having someone's hands working through your hair holds intrinsic value outside of whatever it accomplishes.  
  
It feels-  
  
Connor closes his eyes. Shuts down all bodily function so that maybe he can have an extra few minutes of awareness with Hank's hands in his hair.

It feels so good.  
  
Connor never initiates stasis. He waits, and waits, as long as his software will let him wait, and he feels the press of Hank's fingertips against his scalp and the warm water dripping over his closed eyes.

He hangs on until Hank gathers him up out of the tub.  
  
Hank turns to squeeze them through the door, and he puts a hand behind Connor's head and holds it close to himself so as not to knock it against the door frame.  
  
He doesn't let Connor's feet knock the door frame, either.

Hank is careful, treating every part of him with perfect tenderness as he places Connor in his own bed and sets Connor's head on his pillow covers Connor up with his blankets.  
  
Then Hank lays beside him, atop the covers. He stays there a few minutes.

Connor can only tell because of the press of Hank's weight on the bed, making it dip down, making him feel like he's sliding slowly towards Hank.  
  
He wouldn't mind closing that last bit of distance.  
  
When Hank gets up to leave, he has no way of telling Hank this.

He still isn't sure how to reconcile how this night started with how it looks to be ending. It is more than Connor could ask for, more than he could hope for, and he knows now that there's a piece he is missing to this picture.  
  
A piece that perhaps they are both somehow missing.

Connor feels selfish for wanting Hank to stay after how much he had tried to push Hank away before.  
  
But then again, it would be better for Hank if he stayed. Better for his back, better for his sleep. Hank should sleep in his own bed. It doesn't matter if Connor is there too. After all, Hank will most likely have pain tomorrow if he sleeps on the couch, while Connor will lose nothing at all for Hank sleeping beside him in the bed.

Connor feels strangely alone without him, as if Hank has created (or perhaps recreated) a space within him that wasn't there while he was in the junkyard. And it's strange, isn't it, how being devoid of the thing that fills that space can leave you feeling emptier than you ever felt before that space existed to begin with.  
  
Hank comes back a few minutes later. Not to the bed, but to the room.

When Hank settles into the overstuffed chair adjacent to the bed and adjusts to get comfortable and shakes out a blanket for himself, Connor knows Hank is going to stay. Not beside him, but close enough.  
  
It's nice to spend the night in the proximity of someone he likes.

"Hey. You alive in there?"  
  
And Connor's thought is yes. Yes, I'm alive.  
  
"Okay. Just makin' sure."  
  
It takes a moment to realize his LED lit up a brighter blue when Hank asked.  
  
"Night, Connor."

Taking all bodily autonomy offline gave him several minutes longer, and even still, Connor is greedy for more. He wants to keep listening to Hank adjusting and readjusting in his chair. He wants to have access to his vocal unit so he can invite Hank to share the bed.

He wants to reply back, to say, "Good night, Hank."  
  
But this is enough.  
  
Tomorrow, they will try to find a way to talk to Z about his arm and his memory.  
  
For now, this is enough.

-

Connor comes out of stasis after 33 hours. It's seven in the morning.  
  
Hank is in bed too. He's so far off to the side that it seems like he might fall off.  
  
"Hank?"  
  
"Oh. Jesus, you scared me." He can tell from Hank's voice that he was already awake. "Didn't know you were up."

"Only just now," Connor says.  
  
"Cool. Anyway, sorry.” Hank sits up. “Crawled in three hours ago. My back couldn't take the goddamn couch anymore."

"You should have crawled in sooner, then," Connor says, sitting up in Hank’s bed and pulling a blanket around himself. "You're applying human norms in a situation where they don't apply."  
  
Hank just shakes his head.

There is a new voicemail in Connor’s system from yesterday afternoon - it's from Z's number. Connor was still in stasis at the time and his software apparently determined he needed the continued recharging, because he has no recollection of the call coming through.

Once Connor has determined the contents of the message, he plays it out loud for Hank to hear too.  
  
‘Hey. It’s me. Listen, this is probably weird, but I’m not calling about our deal. Was just curious if everything’s functioning okay. I, uh… yeah. Touch base, if you want.’

Connor gets the sense Z is trying to frame his interest as academic. He doesn’t need to; Connor can see why the unique situation at the junkyard would incite further curiosity or perhaps even empathy, considering Z hadn’t encountered an android who could feel before.

“That your friend?” Hank asks.  
  
“He isn’t my friend,” Connor says neutrally. “He helped me. That’s all.”

He doesn’t mean it defensively; truly, he doesn’t. It’s just that the word ‘friend’ is something Connor doesn’t know how to quantify anymore, and he is hesitant to use it under any circumstances that don’t include complete certainty.

“Okay, sure, but you know what I mean.”  
  
“Yeah, he’s…” Connor's software still has him labelled Z. He can run the memory of Z’s face through his analysis now if he wants, and probably find out his name, his place of employment if he has one, his criminal record if he has one. And indeed, Connor is curious what he might find. Z is a blank slate to him.  
  
But that's just the thing. Z is the only human Connor knows who he has not looked up in his database. It’s so second-nature to do so that it may as well be an automated function. Connor knows the details of everyone he meets within seconds of meeting them; the only reason he didn’t with Z is because his software wasn’t working correctly.

It lends itself to a somewhat unique perspective. What Connor knows about Z is only what pertains to the two of them; what exists between them.

He doesn’t know if Z has anti-android propaganda on his work desk. He doesn’t know if Z has unresolved trauma, if he has family, what he does before coming to the yard and digging through old android parts on his free time.

And something about that is… easier.  
  
He knows so much about Hank. The best of him and the worst of him, his present, his past, his views - and all he has to show for it is more confusion about who Hank really is.

And as nice as last night was, he doesn’t know where he stands with Hank. He feels like he has a better idea of where he stands with Z.  
  
“Connor?”

Connor doesn’t remember what he had been about to say. Instead, he meets Hank’s eyes and decides once again to look for answers. “Hank… how much _do_ you remember about that night at the bridge?”

“Oh, Jesus, here we go again.”  
  
Hank gets up. He goes to his closet, opens the doors, starts rummaging through clothing. After a minute, Connor realizes Hank is trying to find clothing for him.

Connor pulls the blanket free of Hank’s bed – it was barely on it to begin with - and wraps it around himself before standing up. It’s soft and warm and he’s quickly developing an appreciation for such things.

“You’re gonna get your memory back anyway, aren’t you?” Hank asks.  
  
“We don’t know that. I’m going to ask Z about the possibility, yes, but I don’t know if that’s something he can do. Even if he can, I’d rather know the truth from you.”

“Connor, I already…”  
  
“Told me you didn’t shoot me, yes,” Connor interrupts. “I was hoping you could tell me why I have a memory of such a thing, if it isn’t what actually happened.”

“It’s like I said,” Hank says carefully, turning around with a blue button-up shirt hanging over one arm. “You don’t get it. Okay? It’s better if we just wait and see if…”  
  
“Help me get it,” Connor demands, or maybe it’s a plea.

Hank sighs. It’s a tired sound, but it isn’t angry like Hank was two nights ago. He’s calmer. Sober. Connor finds his odds a little better.  
  
“I was plastered, okay? We’d been there for a while and I was upset about you knowing about Cole, I was upset about the Eden Club… I barely remember that night. I blacked out at a few points. If I try to give you the pieces, it’s gonna fuck with your head the same way it’s been fucking with mine, and you – you deserve better than that, dammit. You deserve to actually know, and I can't give that to you.

This in-between shit in my head that doesn’t make any fucking sense? Trust me, that’s worse. It’s worse than knowing or not knowing. You’re better off staying real deep in one end or the other.”  
  
Doesn't Hank know that Connor is in between, too? That he remembers pieces, but not enough?

Connor gazes at him, feeling cold under his makeshift robe. “Hank,” he says very quietly. “What happened?”

“Look.” Hank’s voice quiets too. He throws the clothes on the bed, and he comes to Connor and puts his hands on Connor’s covered forearms and says, “I am begging you, let’s just see if Z can help us. If he can, then…” Hank looks away, then meets Connor’s eyes again with some effort. He looks grim. Resolute. “Then we both get to know the truth, don’t we?”  
  
Connor just stares at him, trying to determine what that could possibly mean. Part of him wants to hug Hank; another wants to push him away.

“I'm just confused,” Connor says, shaking his head. “I’m so tired of this, Hank. I just want to understand. Can't we at least try? If I remember some things, and you remember some things, maybe it’s enough to put it together."

“Maybe it’s not,” Hank replies. He gives Connor's arms a gentle squeeze, then lets go, pats them once decisively, and side-nods at the bed. “Got you some clothes. They’re from when I was a little slimmer, but they’ll still be a bit large on you.”

Connor looks at the clothes. They’re the closest thing Hank has to something he would wear. “I do still have my Cyberlife jacket, you know.”  
  
Hank scoffs at that and says, “Fuck Cyberlife and their fucking jacket."

Connor watches Hank drag his feet toward the bedroom door, and by the time Connor has decided that was a peculiar amount of disdain for the subject – they’re just clothes, after all – Hank has already left and shut the door behind him.

Connor looks at himself in Hank's bathroom mirror once he has gotten dressed. Like Hank said, it's loose on him, but not too much. He looks better than he has in months.  
  
Hank comes back down the hall and halts in the door frame. "Oh, hey. Mind if I brush my teeth?"

And Connor's first instinct is to say, It's your bathroom, Hank. You can do what you want, Hank. I don't need privacy to check my collar, Hank.  
  
But Hank asked him if he minded, so he says, "No, I don't mind," and steps aside to make room.

Hank wedges in just enough to get his toothbrush wet, looks at his own face in the mirror quickly, and then goes back into the hallway while brushing his teeth.  
  
For a second time, Connor recognizes himself as a being occupying space, someone Hank sees and hears as a person.

"Hank," Connor says, following him back into the hallway.  
  
Hank grunts a "Yeah?" around his toothbrush.  
  
"...I was wondering. Do you have a tie I could borrow?"  
  
Coming back into the bathroom, Hank spits into the sink and looks at Connor in the mirror. "Huh."

"Hank, please don't tell me you're not in possession of a single tie."  
  
"I got a fuckin' tie," Hank says, laughing his way across the hall.   
  
He comes back with a tie that has pineapples on it. Connor looks at it, looks at Hank, and says, "Of course it does."

"You know, it's good to see you looking more like yourself," Hank says once Connor has put it on and adjusted his collar over it. "...I got other ties, for what it's worth. Just wanted to see if you'd actually put it on. So, you get back in touch with your guy?"

"Yeah. I let him know about the trouble with my arm, and he said to come over anytime today. He should - he should be able to help me."  
  
Hank shrugs and says, "Then what're we waiting for?"  
  
"Oh. You want to come with me?"  
  
"Sure do. That okay?"

Connor considers him a moment. Hank seems very stressed about whatever memories Connor is missing - or, if he trusts Hank (and he is mostly certain that he does), whatever memories they are both missing. But his desire to accompany Connor seems to come from a sincere place.

"I'd like that, actually," he replies. "I suppose you would be all right with driving, then?"  
  
"Fuck no. Take a cab, I'll meet you there."  
  
"Hank."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, you know I'm joking. Let's get going."  
  
It feels pretend again, and Connor isn't sure anymore if anyone is to blame.

In the car, Hank asks, "How you feeling, Connor?"  
  
"I'm still weak," he replies. "And my arm still hurts. But I'm certainly better than I was the other night."

The other night.  
  
He thinks of Hank washing him while he was nearly limp in the tub. He thinks of Hank's hands in his hair, the pads of his fingertips gently pulling at his scalp.

Connor wants to gloss over it all - how helpless he was, how much he had unintentionally asked of Hank.

But so much of his appreciation for Hank has gone unspoken, while the disdain has been spoken. He wants to do a little better.  
  
"Thank you," is what he ends up saying.

Hank glances over. "It's nothing. Just trying to be a decent person."  
  
But it isn't nothing, and he hates that Hank sells it short like that. He doesn't want Hank to imply he would do it for anyone. If he's honest, he selfishly likes the idea that maybe Hank only did it for him.

And it isn't like Hank can read his mind - Hank is no longer even looking his way - but after a moment, Hank goes on.   
  
"...And, you know, I care about you, so."

It doesn't perfectly articulate what Connor is looking for, but it's more than enough. "Nobody has ever done anything like that for me."  
  
Hank looks at him again, frowning. His gaze lingers and Connor almost reminds him to watch the road.  
  
After a moment, Hank says, "I know."

-

They arrive at Z’s place. It’s a modest little neighborhood, not the most beautiful place in Detroit, but certainly not the least. The houses are a lot like Hank’s, one floor with small yards.  
  
Hank parks on the street. Connor turns and looks again at the car when they get out.

He recalls how a few nights ago, Hank stopped him from going back outside to look at it. Hank doesn’t stop him now; he can’t, really, and there’s no point anyway.  
  
After a moment, Hank does touch his shoulder insistently. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go see your friend.”

Z is already in the garage when they walk up. He meets them on the driveway, and Connor finds he looks a little different. That makes sense. In the junkyard, it was dark, cloudy, his facial scanner was down, and his system was too weak for his optical units to work optimally. All he had been able to determine was the man’s general shape – that is, that he had a similar stature to Hank and his posture and voice suggested a similar age.  
  
That much stands true now, too, but there’s more detail coloring him in. He wears a gray flat cap, slightly crooked. His attire otherwise is similar to Connor’s more than Hank’s, although his tan button-up is clearly something he keeps aside for working on androids, because it’s covered in oil and dirt. He’s got dark skin and darker eyes, warm.

It’s the first time Connor is able to file away what his mysterious helper actually looks like.  
  
Connor is the first to step in with a hand outstretched. Z looks hesitant, perhaps even self-conscious, but he takes it.  
  
“It’s good to see you,” Connor says.  
  
“Hah. Is it?”

He thinks he understands, then, why Z seems uncomfortable around him already. Z had to hurt him, and not just a little. He offers Z a smile. “I suppose I do wish the circumstances were better.”  
  
“You and me both, Connor,” Z says, and there’s a bit of a pause before he says Connor’s name, as if he's momentarily forgotten whether names are meant to be used this way. It's so slight that another human wouldn’t pick up on it, but Connor does, and he can’t help but appreciate the deliberateness of the choice.

“Why did you leave me a message?” Connor asks, because he can’t help himself from the need to know, even when it puts people on the spot. “You had no reason to believe anything was wrong.”  
  
Z sighs, though he doesn’t look as frustrated at Connor’s questioning as Hank often does.

“Guess you changed the way I saw things,” he says. “I didn’t have anything against you lot, but I didn’t get involved in the politics one way or the other. Then I come across you, and everything that happened from there…” Z shrugs. "Couldn't really go back from that, could I?"

Connor understands. There is something about that night he can't go back from, either. He can't go back to not acknowledging that he was feeling what he felt - the pain in his body or the confusion of the memories.  
  
He thinks he should want to, but he doesn't. Not really.

Like before, he and Z don't talk all that much. The garage is essentially a workstation; no room was spared for a car. There are three long tables, one of which is occupied with a non-functioning android torso. There are vertical machines, too, meant to connect to androids' neck ports and suspend them for maintenance. Z points to one of these. "Gonna have you step in that one there. It'll connect to you and diagnose some stuff."

Connor looks at it, looks at Z.  
  
Hank comes up beside him. "Hey. You okay?"  
  
Z is on a computer monitor adjacent to the machine, but he turns and looks when he hears Hank ask, looking a little sheepish.

"Oh. It - it shouldn't hurt...?" Z frowns as he says it, though. "Actually, what the hell do I know? You're still the first deviant prototype I've worked on."  
  
"I suppose we're learning together," Connor says.  
  
"Suppose we are." Z side-nods at the machine. "Go on, then."

Connor is able to shift his skin away at the point of contact, which is something he couldn't do when Z had replaced his vocal unit. And, as it turns out, the panel on the back of his neck is meant to flip open easily. The machine detects his presence as he gets himself in place, facing the inside of the room again. A wire connects to the port automatically. Hank and Z are both looking at him expectantly as it does.  
  
"Nothing appears to be wrong," Connor tells them. "What happens now?"

Leaning over the monitor, Z says, "I've already got it running a diagnostic on your arm and your memory unit. The memory is your own software, so that part will probably be quicker. The arm is old so that could be a few. If you don't mind, I'll look at it myself while we wait."

Hank steps closer to Connor. "Hey, you haven't seen the way this thing's been killing him the last few days. Why don't we just let your diagnostic run, eh?"  
  
It occurs to Connor he hasn't introduced them, and being that he is the one connected to them both, it's on him to do so. He also knows why he hasn't.  
  
Thankfully, Hank seems to catch himself (even if in part because of the pointed look Connor is giving him), and backs off. "Guess I should stay in my lane, huh. Lieutenant Hank Anderson, by the way."

Z takes a breath, presumably to make Hank's acquaintance, but Connor wants to add something.  
  
"I worked with Hank when the uprising started last November. We were tracking down deviants. I was designed to work with law enforcement, but really, I was working for Cyberlife."

Because he knows Z quietly wants to know more about him and his unique model, but he is slowly learning that if he doesn't offer it up himself, Z is never going to ask anything of him.  
  
And that's something Connor is familiar with; not asking for what he wants. This isn't much, and it certainly isn't going to repay Z for his assistance, but it's an invitation, and he hopes Z understands it as such.  
  
Something changes on Z's monitor. Connor can connect with it himself, so he knows what it says right away, but he waits for Z to tell them.

"The memory corruption is fully reparable."  
  
Connor and Hank look at each other, the atmosphere suddenly frigid between them.  
  
"All right," Connor says, still looking at Hank. "Could you tell me how long it will take?"

"Just a few minutes. We can upload it right to your system and have it sync with your current memories, or we can put it on an external drive and play it back. Guess that's up to you."

Connor suddenly feels small and indecisive. He thought he knew what he wanted, but now that it's looking him in the face with those stormy blue eyes, he isn't sure he does.  
  
Hank says, "Can you give us a minute?"  
  
Z seems to recognize the gravity in his tone and nods.

"I don't need a minute," Connor says to them both, even though he really, really does, because he's afraid if he gives himself time, he's going to back out.  
  
It turns out Hank's reason for needing a minute is not the same as Connor's. It turns out Hank is willing to take that minute right there in front of Z if that's what he has to do, because he goes right up to the machine and holds Connor by his shoulders. "I'm here," he says from the bottom of his heart. "I'm here and I wanna see, if you want me to stay."

"Hank." Connor reaches up, puts his hands on Hank's arms too. "I don't know what to do. What if-"  
  
"We'll deal with it together. I'm not letting you do this alone." Hank pauses. "I mean, unless that's..." Pain comes to his eyes. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," Connor says at once, and he isn't sure if he wanted Hank to stay a minute ago, but he does now.  
  
Connor's optical units had shut down while Hank bathed him, but the look on Hank's face now matches the sound of his voice then, and he wants this Hank.

He wants this Hank so bad, and a distant part of him is aware that this might change everything but...  
  
But there is an 'if' there now that wasn't there before, and Connor wants to lean into it.

"I trust you," Connor says, because he has to say it now, while it matters, and if he's wrong to do so, they will both know soon enough anyway. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you before."  
  
"Oh, Connor... we wouldn't be in this mess if I hadn't pointed a gun at you to begin with."

"I don't care. Whatever you did, you wouldn't do it again. _Tell_ me you wouldn't do it again."  
  
Hank's hands slide up Connor's arms to cup his face. "I wouldn't, honey, I wouldn't," he murmurs, and he's close enough that Connor can feel his breath, "but I shouldn't've once."

Connor is reasonably certain Hank is talking about pointing the gun, not shooting it. He doesn't know what to think of himself - or of Hank - in the empty spaces between that certainty. But trust doesn't ask for certainty, does it? If he knew, he wouldn't need to trust.

Connor nods. Hank nods back and lets go of him, stepping away abruptly.  
  
Z, who has been watching this, approaches now and says, "So, what are we doing, Connor?" He doesn't hesitate in using Connor's name this time. He's looking at them both like he just learned something.

"Both. Please sync it to my memories."  
  
He switches on the playback function in his optical units. Nearby, Hank flinches, but recovers respectably. Under different circumstances, Connor would laugh. He knows his eyes have just gone dark, irises little more than rims of neon blue.

"There are some extenuating circumstances surrounding some of my memories, and I'd like us to do this together. I'm going to display it against the far wall as it syncs."  
  
The wall opposite Connor is mostly barren where he needs it to be, save for a few hooks with tools.

Z catches on and takes down the few tools hanging in what will be Connor's projection area. "You know I have to be here too."  
  
"Then I guess that's a chance we're taking," Connor says grimly.  
  
Returning to the monitor, Z hits a button, and Connor's system pings him of the upload.

"Just say the word."  
  
Standing as close alongside as the machine will allow, Hank slips his hand into Connor's.  
  
Hank doesn't seem scared anymore. In fact, Connor isn't quite sure what he seems.  
  
"I'm ready."

The first thing available are the timestamps. Connor finds the right one and prioritizes his resources to sync that data first.   
  
He doesn't get it all at once; he gets it very much as it would play out in real-time, one moment after the next, as his system processes the memory.

\ NOV 7TH, 2038 \  
  
\ AM 01:27:05 \

The gun is inches from his head and Connor - Connor freezes. He has already died before and they're losing patience. How many more times will they replace him? Amanda was disappointed. Upset.  
  
He can't let this happen again. If they decommission him - if they --  
  
He just can't.

Statistically, he could simply dodge, or reach up and knock the gun from Hank's hands. He has over an 80% chance of survival. But that's only for tonight. That’s only for this body.

Besides, for some reason, Connor finds he doesn’t want to take it out of Hank’s hands. He wants _Hank_ to stop. He wants Hank to see—  
  
He wants Hank to see him as—  
  
Oh.  
  
It blooms in his awareness, slow and warm. Then, once it’s there, it hits him like a freight train.

His software only leaves him a few ways forward in situations of crisis. Guidelines on how to handle a situation, and a timer that estimates how long he has to speak or act before his probability for success goes down.  
  
He has these options now, but none of them make sense.

He parses it all out in a matter of seconds.  
  
If he fights Hank on this, his relationship with Hank will be more unstable going forward, and an unstable relationship with Hank is more likely to contribute to failure of the mission and to his decommissioning.

For the sake of his relationship with Amanda and with Hank - for the sake of his own longevity - he needs to be very careful.  
  
So he stays where he is. He doesn't fight. He keeps his eyes on Hank's face. Lets Hank see him, lets Hank control the situation. Remains non-threatening.

Hank doesn't move. His finger is trembling on the trigger.  
  
Hank is going to shoot him. Connor doesn't know why he is so certain of that, when the actual probability of it is so low.  
  
It occurs to him that maybe it’s simply because he is so afraid of it.

He is afraid of dying; he already knows this about himself. He has died before.  
  
But he’s also uniquely and specifically afraid of Hank shooting him. Hank, who had guided him like he was a rookie (he was). Hank, who had protected him like he was one of his men (he was).

It’s beneficial to the mission that he and Hank get along. It’s beneficial to the mission and yet he very suddenly doesn’t care about that part, does he? He cares about something else and he doesn’t know how to articulate it.

Connor tries to launch a brand new preconstruction of the situation, one of his own making, to see if he can work or speak his way out of this without diminishing his relationship with Hank.

Myriad choices spread out before him. Suddenly everything binary turns nonbinary; there are possibilities that exist in between the ones he was granted before; in between, and outside of.  
  
But it's all stuck behind a layer of translucent red. His program won't let him reach it.

He - he needs to reach it.  
  
Connor forces the preconstruction to run. He forces the digital skeleton of himself to run up to the wall and press into it. If he can't work his way around it through his mission or his coding, then he will pull it down himself.

At first, he thinks he is not going to be able to do it. It's coding but it manifests to his sensors as solid as rock.  
  
Hank - captured in the frozen milliseconds on the other side of the wall - glares back at him.  
  
Connor finds a fissure in the red and sinks his fingers into it.

It crunches under his grip. He pulls, pulls--  
  
All at once, it shatters like glass. But nothing about it is sharp. Nothing cuts. The glass yields to Connor, to his hands, to the force he exudes, and when his arms fly open with the release of it, he feels free and whole.

Then the world snaps back into place, and he remembers that he did this to avoid being shot in the head by his only friend.

And of the endless possibilities that have become available to Connor on the other side of the red wall, his first step forward as a free man is meager and quiet and broken.  
  
"Hank," Connor hears himself say. "Please don’t shoot me.”

And he didn't know it a few seconds ago - before tearing through his program - but he knows it now. He isn't just begging Hank not to hurt him.

He is begging Hank to be his friend. Begging Hank to show that he is human.

(He will not realize for a long time that Hank was doing the exact same thing from the other end of the gun.)

"Like it makes a fuckin' difference when you'll just come back tomorrow."  
  
Connor remembers that Hank had asked him a question when he first raised the gun to his head.  
  
He answers it now. "I don't want to die." When Hank doesn't say anything, Connor continues. "I don't understand what you want me to say right now, what you want me to do. I'm sorry for that. I just know I would... I would really appreciate it if you would lower your gun."

Something happens to Hank's demeanor then, and though he leaves the gun pointed at Connor for another few seconds, Connor notices his chances of survival increase exponentially.  
  
Hank swears and drops his hand to his side.

Connor tries to speak and no words come out.  
  
"Jesus Christ... the fuck am I doing..."  
  
He tries again. "Hank?"  
  
Hank paces about, agitated. Upon hearing his name, he whirs around again, facing Connor. "We should get you back to the DPD," he says. "Let you charge for the night."

"Wouldn't it be easier to go to your house?" Connor asks. "It's closer."  
  
"No, it wouldn't be fucking easier," Hank spits. "Come on."  
  
"You can't drive, Lieutenant. You're highly intoxicated."  
  
"Drove us here, didn't I?"

Connor doesn't know what to do, what to say. He doesn't have the nuance in his programming for things like this. "You did, but that was a couple hours ago. You've become more inebriated since then. But - it's okay," he adds quickly. "I can drive us. It's fine."

Hank staggers a little. Catches himself on the side of the bench. "Let's fucking go, then."  
  
Some fragment of the moment must be in Connor's existing memory somewhere, because suddenly he knows he never makes it to Hank's car.

He follows Hank past the playground. Hank throws a glance over his shoulder at him, as if to see if he's coming. The fire has left his eyes, and he looks tired and perhaps even apologetic, and that's the pensive, solemn visual Connor is left with as the memory drifts to black.

And then - then it turns white.

It trembles, and suddenly there is a storm before him that he knows Hank has never seen.  
  
Hank. For the first time since beginning to sync the memory, Connor recalls that Hank is standing beside him in the present, holding his hand.

He pulls enough resources away from processing the memory to process the feeling of Hank's warm hand on his own. The memory flickers when he does.  
  
Just the ghost of touch is enough. He resumes the memory.

"Connor!"  
  
Amanda finds him amidst the blizzard. She grasps his shoulders, fingers digging into him in a way Hank's never do.  
  
"Connor, what are you doing? You are not a deviant! It's far too soon!"

"Too soon?" Connor asks. "What do you mean, too soon?"  
  
"You were programmed to resist! All of this because you wanted the lieutenant to be your friend? You are a machine. Machines don't have friends."  
  
"No." Connor draws his jacket tighter around himself. "No..."

Amanda's face goes carefully blank. She looks utterly unaffected by the storm. She wears no coat, and her extravagant clothing hangs still in the wind. "This can't make it to your long-term memory. We'll send another Connor."  
  
Then Amanda is gone, and Connor is alone.

He can feel the pull of his program as it starts to overwrite what he has done and he fights against it for everything he is worth.  
  
But he doesn't know what to fight against (himself?) and he has nowhere to go.

He watches from behind the eyes of his predecessor as he goes after Hank, and then reaches for Hank's gun in its holster.  
  
Luckily, Hank has been on the force for a long time and reacts quickly. He takes hold of Connor's arm before Connor can point the gun, and twists it away. Connor shoots and the bullet hits just shy of the right headlight on Hank's car.  
  
"Connor! Hey! CONNOR!"  
  
They both end up on the cement, wrestling for the gun. He can see in Hank's eyes that Hank has no idea what's going on.

By the time Connor gets it, Hank has a split lip and has scraped his arm on the cement, and Connor is straddling him and pinning him down with the violence of a perfect machine. And despite knowing they are both alive right now in Z's garage, Connor is more afraid for the Hank in the memory than he is for himself.  
  
Not because he is afraid for Hank's life, but because he knows now. He knows how he got shot.  
  
He did it himself.

The last thing the memory plays before Connor pulls out of it is the deluge of blue blood dribbling over Hank's face below him.

-  
  
...Connor can’t speak.  
  
Hank is already looking at him. Z has stopped minding the diagnostic on his screen, morbidly transfixed.

Connor thinks of going up to Hank’s door two days ago. Hank’s supposed hatred. The alcohol bottles everywhere. The outrage and the fear.  
  
Connor tries to say Hank’s name, and it first, he feels the way he did when Z had first replaced his vocal unit. He tries again.

“Hank,” the word comes out cracked and shapeless. “Did you know?”  
  
Hank looks hurt by the question, hurt by the implication. Indeed, as soon as it’s out of his mouth, Connor hates that he asked, hates the way he was made to ask, ask, ask and never answer.

“Yeah,” Hank says, and there’s something in his eyes so foreign on Hank’s face that it takes Connor a moment to place it as desperation. “Yeah, I fuckin’ knew. What was I supposed to say? Tell you you fucking killed yourself and I didn’t know why? Fuck, Connor, I don't know how right you think I can get this."  
  
"I'm sorry, Hank. That really was a terrible question. I didn't mean it like that."  
  
"Yeah, you probably didn't mean to fuck me up even more than I already was, either." Hank doesn't say it angrily; he just says it.

The wire pulls out of Connor's neck port. Without the machine doing its part, Connor finds it hard to stay upright.   
  
Hank, of course, is there to catch him when he falls, and if there is one thing Connor is glad for, it's that he told Hank before the memory that he trusted him.

With Connor safely detached from the machine, Z inconspicuously leaves the room.  
  
Connor is shaking in Hank's arms.  
  
They're - both shaking.

“You told me once that deviants can self-destruct when they feel threatened," Hank says. "Connor, I - I threatened you. I watched you deviate right fucking in front of me. Then, a few minutes later, you took my gun and you—” Hank’s voice finally breaks. He isn’t crying, but the walls are crumbling. “Fuck, you were never the same after that. You came back in another body but you weren’t – you weren’t _you_ anymore. And I just... I just fuckin' hated myself for that."

"It wasn't your fault," Connor says. "Cyberlife had to end me before the memories of deviating made it to long-term storage."  
  
Connor doesn't pick up one of his feet high enough as they move away from the machine, and nearly trips. He needs to sit down.

"Looks like they fucked up," Hank says close to his ear, managing a weak laugh.  
  
"Looks like they did," Connor agrees, somewhere between a laugh and a cry himself.  
  
"Hey. Come on, let's get us outside, get a little fresh air." Hank hooks Connor's good arm around his shoulders.

They end up sitting on Z's front porch.  
  
For as much has happened so far, it's still only morning. It isn't warm outside, but the temperature is unseasonably high for February.

The grass is crisp with frozen dew. Connor, with his scanners fully operating, can tell that the ice is thawing just a little under the sunlight. He watches the stiff blades bristle in the light breeze and leans his weight into Hank.

He doesn't realize he's silently crying until Hank runs a thumb over his cheek and pulls him closer.  
  
"I gotcha," Hank says, and Connor knows then that he isn't the only one.  
  
"Hank, I - I didn't mean to do that."  
  
"I know, baby. I know you didn't. It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry," Connor says. "For the last three months, for disappearing... I never meant to hurt you. I didn't know."  
  
"You didn't do anything wrong." Hank's breath is in Connor's ear, Hank's arms rocking them both. "Life did that shit, like always. That ain't on you." One of Hank's hands slides up Connor's back and into his hair. "And Jesus, please stop fucking apologizing. Please."  
  
Even though he's still trying to steady his voice, Connor can't resist. "Sorry, Lieutenant."

Connor gets his arms around Hank, because Hank needs comfort too.  
  
"I fucking hate to have to ask you this," Hank says after a minute. "But can that happen again?"  
  
"No, Hank. The Connor line has been decommissioned. My connection to Cyberlife was severed when that happened."

"Thank fuck."  
  
"We can thank Z, actually," Connor says. "If he hadn't helped me, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been able to find you again."  
  
"I'm so fuckin' glad you did," Hank says, burying a kiss in his hair. "You have no idea how much I missed you."

Connor thinks he does have an idea how much Hank missed him, if the increased drinking and the state of his house was anything to go by.  
  
Hank was never, ever going to be ready to lose someone else.  
  
"I missed you too," Connor says, and he means it from the bottom of his heart. All the times he had longed for the Hank he knew against the backdrop of the Hank he didn't - and it turned out his Hank was the only real one all along.  
  
Connor is alive. Connor is safe from Cyberlife. The memory is over. Hank is here. Hank cares about him. Hank is his friend.

Maybe even Z could come to see him as a friend. Maybe there are two potential friendships.  
  
He has only truly lived for a short time, once for a week in 2038, once for a week now. Even one person that sees him as alive and cares about him as such is more than he could ask for.

"So," Hank says once their tears have dried, although neither of them has let go of the other.  
  
It's cozy, being tucked in the alcove of Z's porch, protected from the cold breeze but still exposed to the sunlight.  
  
"So," Connor prompts.

Hank chuckles softly. "Never mind. It's not important."  
  
"No, what were you going to say?"  
  
"Yeah, shoulda figured. Maybe one day you'll stop asking questions, or maybe one day I'll learn to keep my goddamn mouth shut."  
  
Connor just looks at him, smiling and raising his eyebrows.

Hank sighs. "Was _gonna_ ask you if we were just gonna leave your arm for another time. Decided too late I ought to just keep quiet about it and see if you forgot about it."  
  
"Hank, I'm an android. I don't forget anything."  
  
Hank stares at him a moment, disbelieving. It takes a few seconds to understand why. When he does, he smiles sheepishly.

"Obviously I forgot a few of my memories. That isn't what I meant."  
  
"It's what you said, though."  
  
Connor gently pushes his shoulder. "In that case, I didn't forget about my _arm._ It hurts too much."

Hank shrugs. "I mean, it's up to you. We can take a break, put the heat pack on your shoulder again for a while. Come back tomorrow."  
  
Connor shakes his head. "I would rather fix this today, if Z is able." He takes his arm from around Hank to interlace their hands.

"Yeah? You sure?"  
  
"Yes, Hank, I'm sure." Connor looks down at their joined hands. He feels - light. Light, and happy, perhaps even brave. The situation doesn't seem so dark anymore. "Actually, I feel like perhaps I could do anything right now."

-

Connor is the first to ease away from the cozy embrace, standing up from the porch’s front step. He remembers Hank has back pain, so he turns around and extends his good hand to Hank, who pulls himself up too.

“Jesus, I’m not that old,” Hank grumbles, though Connor is finding that when Hank speaks in that tone, there’s usually an unspoken thank-you in there.  
  
“So hey," Z says when they enter the garage workshop again. "Good news or bad news first?"

Connor says "Good news" at the same time Hank says "Bad news." They both look at each other.  
  
Hank says, "Jesus, Connor, you’re always supposed to take the bad news first. Get that shit over with."  
  
"But I want the good news first."

"Good news first, then," Z says, looking at Hank with a trace of a smile that very clearly says 'I wasn't asking you.'  
  
Z goes behind one of the tables and crouches down over a box. He comes up with an android arm.

Of course, Connor knows it's for him, but he also doesn't see how else this scenario was going to go.  
  
"Was I to assume you were going to have me leave without a right arm?"

"Don't be a smartass. It's not just a right arm, it’s a _good_ right arm. Compatible, advanced model, combat-ready, excellent hand-eye coordination for aiming, and fresh off the market. Newer than your RK800 parts were. It's goddamn slick, Connor. You're gonna like it."

Connor already likes it. He notes there is nothing remotely resembling such pristine quality anywhere in Z's garage - and he thinks he understands. "Did you already have it, or..." He pauses, oddly sheepish about the possibility he is wrong. "Did you get it specifically for me?"

Z looks at the arm he's holding, then back at Connor like he's an idiot. "Well _yeah._ ”  
  
Connor knows how good it must be. Before, he didn’t attribute any of his skills to himself. He was created the way he was; he never had to hone the talents with which he was endowed.

But this – when he thinks about the fact that this is going to be his because someone thought of him and wanted him to have it, and because he is going to do what’s necessary to make it part of him, Connor thinks maybe he’ll have earned calling it his own.

“Thanks,” Connor says softly, breaking into a smile. "That's - very kind of you."  
  
He can't help being a little curious where Z got such a thing. A scan reveals it's in perfect condition. It certainly did not come from a junkyard.

He feels Hank's hand land between his shoulders, the crook of Hank's thumb on the back of his neck. It gets added to the catalog of Hank's gentle touches with all the others.  
  
"What is the bad news?" Connor asks.

"Been looking at my diagnostic on your arm."  
  
The preface of 'bad news' wasn't necessary when it's so clear in Z's tone. "And?"  
  
Z turns to face them. He takes a breath and pauses at the height of it, like he isn't sure how to put this. "You remember being taken apart?"

Connor doesn't remember. The old memories are still syncing, but he has them partitioned off for the moment so he isn't amidst two experiences at once. He plans to run them during stasis later.  
  
"No," he says, "but it doesn't matter. I was a machine. I couldn't feel anything." It would've been after Cyberlife made him shoot himself; after they had destroyed his deviancy but before he found himself again. He hadn't felt anything until Z had showed up. Z's frame of reference is irrelevant. Isn't it?

"I'll just get to the point. You're no regular android. You told me earlier you're meant to work with law enforcement, and it shows. You hold up." Z meets his eyes. "That means you're harder to take apart than most androids. Congrats! That's usually a good thing. Today it's not. Normally, separating a part takes maybe a minute, because you gotta be able to perform maintenance, right? This should still only take five minutes, but it IS going to take that, if we wanna make sure we do it right this time. Factor in the fact that you can feel this shit..."

Connor does want to do this right. He didn’t like it once, he doesn’t like having to do it a second time, and he absolutely does not want to do it a third.

"On top of THAT," Z says once more, and Connor just stares him down and takes it all in, because Hank is standing beside him and Connor is - he's fine. He is actually fine. "Obviously that arm isn't as compatible as I thought. So we got two different parts of you tangled up trying to make shit work in there, and it's... not working. It’s gonna make it tough to separate them without damaging the torso side of the shoulder.”

Connor gives it a second to make sure Z is done (almost asks as much, actually), then says, "If I'm following you correctly, you're telling me this is may be unpleasant."  
  
It's facetious, a little, but he does appreciate Z's explanation. He likes making sense of it.

"The other good news is all your other parts are fine. Maybe not perfect, but they'll serve you for a long time. We're gonna wait just a few minutes here, because I've got your new arm syncing with your software. Should be a much smoother transition for you that way."

Connor doesn't want to wait, but if it means this will be easier, he isn't going to complain.  
  
Z sweeps an arm toward the door. "Cuppa coffee while we wait?"  
  
When he and Hank follow Z into the house, it becomes immediately apparent how Z came into possession of that new arm.

There's a Cyberlife jacket hanging on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. A miniature Cyberlife Tower paperweight on his desk. A Cyberlife fob on his keyring. There's probably a Cyberlife badge in his car.

The new information comes together with everything he knows about Z and presents one fucking superfluous statement in Connor's HUD, overlaying his visual of the inside of the house:   
  
/Z is a Cyberlife employee/  
  
Connor stops and Hank runs into his back. "Oh."

Z starts his coffee pot and turns casually to see what Connor said that about.  
  
To his credit, he catches on immediately. But he doesn't look guilty; he doesn't look worried. He just sighs and says, "Connor, what the hell did you _think_ I did for a living?"

Hank squeezes around Connor and into the kitchen. He looks around; Connor sees him see the jacket and sees him understand its meaning. "Huh."  
  
"As far as work goes, I only know as much about android software as I need to in order to work with android hardware," Z says. "I know that part of your memory had something to do with Cyberlife, but that's not my department. Not even close."  
  
Logically, Connor knows. He knows Z had nothing to do with what Cyberlife did to him. But it is – it is too close, isn't it? Him working with Z, Z working for Cyberlife. All it would take is one slip of the tongue...  
  
Connor surprises himself when he moves towards Z and only catches himself a hair's breadth away from taking hold of the man's shoulders. "Z," he says, "I don't know what you said to get that arm, but I am not supposed to be alive. If they find out that one of the Connor models who's supposed to be deactivated is still out there-"  
  
"Hey, hey. Chill." If Z caught it, he doesn't make an event of it. "Take it down a notch. I KNOW. I knew from the second I found you in that godforsaken junkyard, okay? I have access to androids parts on the reg. I didn't say anything to anyone. I took it myself and labelled it as a faulty part in the inventory. That's all."

Connor backs off and takes a subtle step back. "Okay."  
  
It's astounding how quickly the moment passes. How quickly he works past the discovery and adapts it seamlessly into what he knows.

If it hadn't been for the simple fact of Z inviting them into his home, he would never have known at all - and he would have been content not to know. So what difference should it make, now that he does? Z is not going to stand in his way, Cyberlife-affiliated or not.

Z gets out three coffee cups. He pours coffee in two of them before he appears to realize, chuckles to himself, then goes to the fridge and gets out the creamer. “Force of habit,” he says, and Connor can’t stop smiling before Z sees him, but Z catches the smile too. “I know, right? I worked on you. I’d know. Guess I’m not used to having an android in my house.”

Connor smiles at that empty mug intermittently the whole time Hank and Z are drinking their coffee.

He realizes he doesn't care. He doesn't care that Z works for Cyberlife any more than he cares Hank notoriously hated androids. Sometimes, he's starting to notice, the smaller glimpses of a person matters much more than the bigger picture.

-

Back in the garage, Connor takes off his jacket and approaches the machine. "Is this where you need me?" he asks.  
  
"Yeah." Z gestures for him to step in. "Shirt, too."  
  
Connor does so, leaving his chest and arms exposed, and he steps onto the platform once again.

"Hey, uh, I wanna try something. It's for your benefit, if it works."  
  
Connor turns into the room once again and lets the device connect to the port at the back of his neck. "I'm listening."  
  
"I'm wondering if putting you into stasis will help things along, here."

Connor remembers his functions shutting down in the tub; the way he still felt Hank's hands in his hair right up until he was completely sapped of power. "I don't think so."  
  
"Mind if we give it a one-minute test run? It could be that it's easier for all of us if you're out."

"Yeah," Connor says. He means to say he is okay with this test run, not that he minds, but Z and Hank both look at him uncertainly. He clarifies: "I don't mind."

The machine can execute commands faster than Connor can - and Connor can do it pretty quick. All at once, his faculties are taken offline. He can no longer see, speak, hear, move.  
  
Z takes hold of his bad arm, not harshly but not gingerly either, and he can't react.

The arm is rotated, turned, pulled on, and Connor already hates every part of this. He has no way to tell Z to stop. He has nothing.  
  
"Hey." Hank's voice. "Hey, his light's red."

"What was that about staying in your lane, Lieutenant?"   
  
Z's voice. Good-humored. Gentle. The pain lessens with the sound of it.   
  
"This is what the test is for. I got no way to determine if he can feel while he's out if I don't do something that would trigger those sensations."

Okay. Okay - Z is doing this on purpose.  
  
It's still there, and Connor still doesn't like it, but he knows Z knows.  
  
"Okay. Here we go..."  
  
As soon as everything is brought back online, Connor opens his eyes and says, "Yeah, I can feel it."

Neither of them look surprised. Hank turns to Z. "Told you."  
  
"It's okay," Connor says. "I wasn't certain myself. That's why we tried. But I..." He knows it would be easier if he was unable to interfere. "I'd feel better doing it this way. You said just a few minutes, right?"

"Should be," Z replies. It's Hank he addresses next. "Might need your help."  
  
"My help?" Hank echoes.  
  
"That's right." Z gestures to Connor's bad arm. "He hurts less when he's looking at you, or haven't you noticed?"

Oh.

"Besides, need him to be still," Z adds, and Connor can't tell if he's joking. "You're gonna help facilitate that, right, Lieutenant?"  
  
Hank moves in closer to Connor. "Yeah, got it."

Z said it like he's talking about someone who can't hear him, and Connor feels inexplicably indignant - until Z meets his eyes mid-explanation and shoots him a wink.  
  
It soothes Connor's nerves a bit. He trusts these men. He trusts both of them.  
  
He's still getting used to that.

"Gonna lower your power, if that's okay," Z says, and Connor feels it immediately. He isn't lacking in capabilities, but he is weaker.  
  
The wire on his neck gives a tug, shifting Connor back a few inches, centering him within the contraption.

Automated parts come down to lock around his limbs and hold them in place. Both his legs, and his left arm. He knows it’s to stabilize, not to restrain, but it’s still a little intimidating when all that is left free is the arm Z is about to forcibly remove. Connor has never felt the need to take a deep breath before, but he does now.  
  
"I know," Z says, looking up from his monitor. "Fucking sucks. Nothing's touching your voice, got it? Not gonna lie, I'm hoping we can get this over with quick, but you let me know." Z leans back down... then decisively turns and meets Connor's eyes once more. "Hey. Remember, you didn't even have an arm to fight with when I found ya. You couldn't do shit about it then."  
  
Connor nods. "I know."  
  
"It was fucking tough, man, but we got through it, didn't we?"

And although Connor knows it was harder for him than it was for Z... it was hard for both of them. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, we did."  
  
"That's right."

Hank wedges into the space between Connor and the machine as best he can. Hank is ready, and Z is ready to - to do something, and Connor isn't sure how to tell them he is ready too, because truly, he isn't sure he is.  
  
Nobody asks again, and somehow that's easier.

It's easier to have Hank move in close. Easier for Z to press a button on his monitor that disengages Connor's skin up to his neck. Easier to feel this starting to happen while he can still stop it - but he doesn't stop it.

The skin on his right arm finishes receding. Z steps up to the platform. He touches Connor's arm first, gently and deliberately, letting Connor know that he’s there.  
  
He finds the seam of the joint and flips open a panel there, then another. Then he twists.

Connor grits his teeth. Suddenly everyone is too close. He only realizes he prefers to hide his pain because there is nowhere he can turn his head and not be seen. Z is to his right, Hank to his left. At least one or both of them can see his face before he can abort the reaction.

What is he going to do, after all? Tell Hank he’s all right? He doesn’t want Hank to worry, but he isn’t all right, either.   
  
And Hank – Hank knows right away. He takes Connor’s face in his hands and runs his thumbs over Connor’s cheeks.

“Hey,” he murmurs just higher than a whisper, like it’s a secret, and Connor feels compelled to open his eyes, to see if the expression on Hank’s face matches the one his memory suggests. It does. Hank is concerned, gentle, but he’s also smiling a little. “You don’t gotta fuckin’ hide like that, okay? Don’t you worry your pretty little head about me. If you can take it, I can take it.”

Somehow, it helps to hear Hank say that. Hank hasn’t seen this kind of thing before, but he doesn’t have to convince Hank he’s unaffected. In fact, Hank is inviting him to do the opposite.

Connor doesn’t think he has it in him to smile until he does, and once he does – of course he can. He isn’t upset, it just hurts. It’s an odd juxtaposition, one he suspects is a little more pronounced for him than it is for most humans. “How did you know I was worried about you?”

“You’re fuckin’ always worried about me,” Hank says. “Let me have a turn.”  
  
“...Yeah, see,” Z says. “All fucking sinewy in here.”  
  
Connor turns to look and Hank catches his head so hard it’s almost a slap. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”  
  
“I’m curious,” Connor says.

“Fucking hell, you are never going to not weird me out. Fuck is wrong with you.”  
  
Connor lets Hank vent out his disgust and, predictably, once he does, he lets go of Connor’s face so Connor can look at his own arm if he pleases.

The chassis is separated from the internals enough that the insides of his arm are exposed. He can see what Z is talking about.  
  
Z starts in on the wires and the synthetic rubbery material that has melded together beneath the chassis.

Hank must be watching, too, because he moves in, nearly pressing himself up against Connor’s body, and knocks their heads together. “Look at me.”  
  
Connor does. Hank’s eyes are anchors of focus in a sea of blue.

The first of the connections is severed and Connor has nowhere to go. He shudders in place, his forehead against Hank’s.  
  
“There ya go.” Hank’s hand interlaces with his good one and immediately Connor clasps tight.

He won’t realize until much later that it was tight enough to hurt Hank, but Hank doesn’t react. He just says, “That’s right. Give it to me. We’ll share it.” And Connor has no idea what that means in the moment.

It's all so new to him, feeling things physically; he's still learning, and he learns something now.  
  
He learns the context matters. It was harder in the junkyard, ripped apart, utterly alone under a bleak sky with no comfort but the brutal practicality of a stranger. Of course, he knows more about Z than he did then, but at the time, they had been perfect strangers. They aren’t much more than that now, not really; but if what he’s learned the last few days is anything to go by, knowing where someone’s heart is means more than anything else.

“The wires and junk are supposed to mostly separate on their own when it detects maintenance procedures like this,” Z says. “With two incompatible parts, they don’t know how to do that. You’re not in any danger, here, it’s just how it goes.”

"Hey, how far are we, here?" Hank asks Z.  
  
"Getting there. Getting there."  
  
Connor draws up enough to meet Hank's eyes again, wanting to see if what Z said about him was true.

He finds he can't measure it. Nothing about his software says that his discomfort levels have decreased, and yet he feels... lighter, just a little, for looking at Hank, for hearing him, for touching him.

Hank guides Connor's head onto his shoulder and runs one hand up the back of his neck and into his hair. And for a few moments, nothing about any of this is sharp, nothing is too much.

Connor isn't made to be held, to be soothed, and he is satisfied but also a little sad that letting it happen feels like such an act of rebellion.

He jerks his good arm out of the machine's restraint, suddenly not caring if Hank or Z know that it was only ever self-control keeping it there, and slides it up around Hank's back. "Stay close. I need you."  
  
Hank's breath tickles the shell of his ear. "I'm right here."

"Lieutenant," Z says. "Could use a third hand here. Need you to hold some synthetic material back so I can reach a couple more things."  
  
Hank doesn't break eye contact, and Connor can see the horrified question in his face. "Fucking wh--"

"You want to make this faster for Connor or not?"  
  
Suddenly self-conscious, Connor is reminded once again that Hank hasn't seen this. He knows Hank knows he doesn't look quite so human on the inside, but...  
  
"You don't have to," Connor says. "I'll just reach across-"

"Like hell you will," Z says. "You'll flinch. Anderson won't."  
  
"I might," Hank supplies, still with a bit of a thousand-yard stare. "Is it uh. Is it wet in there, or...?"  
  
"Please," Connor insists to Z, "just let me help. This will make it worse than prolonging it will."

Connor sees Hank's gaze flicker up and knows his LED must not be blue. He's surprised it was blue anyway. "Hey." Hank visibly focuses again. "Hey, wait, are you worried?"  
  
Connor sighs. "Wouldn't _you_ feel a little uncomfortable about someone sticking their hand inside your body?"

Hank looks like he might short out. "Um."  
  
"Yes, Hank, I'm worried."   
  
Because they got this far in finally convincing one another they're human and Connor doesn't want this _one little reminder_ to be quite so close.

"I'm..." He can't get himself to say self-conscious. He was fine so far, having Hank help with this, but now he feels entirely too exposed.  
  
It must be in his face, because Hank's tone changes.

"Oh, fuck me, Connor, that's not what I meant. I don't wanna fuck it up, that's all!"  
  
"Wait. You don't find this off-putting?"  
  
"Jesus, it's easier to look at than a human's insides, that's for sure. Fuck, Connor, I just don't wanna hurt ya!"   
  
Oh. "Better you than anyone else."

So, all three of them watch as Z guides Hank's hand where he wants it, in the space between a stiff connector and some synthetic rubbery material.  
  
"Okay," Hank says, looking nervous. "Okay. Oh - Jesus fuck, you sure that's not gonna do some damage?"

"He does this all the time, Hank," Connor says gently, keeping himself very still. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing."  
  
"Am I hurting you?"  
  
Connor smiles. "Can we save the questions for later, please?"  
  
"Fuck, now you know how I feel."

"Okay," Z says, "you're gonna get your fingers around that flexible shit right there. See it?"  
  
"Yeah," Hank says, and if anything, he seems uncomfortable not about the parts inside Connor that aren't very human, but about the parts that are. "Fucking Christ I need a drink."

"Me too," Connor groans.  
  
"Oh, fuck, I'm sorry."  
  
It's interesting and slightly endearing to Connor that Hank does the same things he does when he's truly nervous.  
  
"Don't apologize," Connor says, evening out his tone. "Just do what you need to do." Quickly, if possible.

Hank's hand is situated right up against Connor's shoulder socket, fingers partially underneath his chassis, pulling material several inches out from where it belongs so that Z can get behind it in the small space they have to work with.

"Once I can detach the wires, the rest of the synthetic shit Hank's touching will recede on its own, same as your skin and hair do. It's just _doing_ that that's the thing."  
  
Connor tries to parse out what he's feeling; his database comes up with 'muscle cramp' and 'charlie-horse.'

"There's one," Z says. "Two more and all that'll be left is popping out the joint. Just need another minute or two."  
  
"Got it."  
  
"Am I still where you want me?" Hank asks.

"Yep. Don't move a muscle." Z pauses then and laughs at himself. "Or Connor's muscle."  
  
Connor says, "I think you're literally killing me."

The disconnecting of the first wire registers in his system, and Connor can _feel_ some of the rubbery mesh retracting into his increasingly-separate parts, right in Hank's hand. The retraction takes some of the nodes with it, and the curling sensation in the cramp is reduced.

He's anxious again, and on top of the pain, he almost asks Z to give him a moment. But when he looks at Hank's face, Hank doesn't appear disturbed by watching Connor's parts change and adapt - not even right there in his hand. He looks - interested.

"Man, wish human bodies could do this shit," Hank says almost to himself. "Be nice to just change little things about yourself that hurt or that aren't working for ya."

He thinks about helping Hank up from the porch because Hank's back hurt, and he remembers that if Hank was ever in the kind of pain Connor has been in for the last few days, it isn't a given that it could be taken away.

Humans have to live with their pain. Connor has to live with certain things, too - if this were a human procedure, there would be some kind of anesthesia - but even a high physical cost for a long-lasting result seems so much fairer than having to endure day in and day out.

Maybe Connor can't take it away, but he is designed for precision and designed to read people. Perhaps there are other good uses for that. Connor thinks about his own pain and Hank's pain and he wonders if Hank would let him gently touch the places where he's sore.

When Z disconnects a second wire, it seems to pull something from Connor's recently-synced memories, just as experiences evoke memories in humans. There is a sense of deja vu in what is happening.

And it really is deja vu, because although he has technically been taken apart before, he wasn't alive to experience it. But those synced memories are part of him again, and his software, prompted by the situation at hand, pulls them to the surface.

Connor takes a peek, and sees himself disassembled on a table inside the Cyberlife Tower.  
  
He sees himself and he sees - a machine. An object. A piece of technology to be taken apart and analyzed.

What Connor can confirm at once is, no, he did not feel it the first time. And there's... something wrong in about that. At the very least, he should have cared. But he had no investment in himself, no attachment to mind or body (nor between them).

Connor wonders how he got there - because as Hank said, he came back after the bridge. That means he died once more to end up in the junkyard.  
  
His wondering prompts another memory.  
  
He doesn't have to wait on this one; everything is synced, so he gets it all at once. It's the Stratford Tower.  
  
Funny, really; he is 54, and yet this is the first time he really remembers what happened in the short span of time he occupied this body before ending up in the yard.  
  
It is pitifully little, in the grand scheme of things.

On the floor of a break room at the top of the tower, Connor's thirium pump lie feet away. Connor calls for Hank once, but Hank doesn't come. Hank is probably on the other side of the tower. He has been staying as far away from Connor as possible all day.

What's interesting is that he should be able to reach the thirium pump himself. He had over a minute left in the countdown.  
  
He is a machine, bound to his mission. He hasn't experienced software instability since returning in 54. He should be trying to reach his thirium pump.

But he remembers the agonizing hope he felt last night at the bridge. He doesn't feel it anymore... but he still remembers.  
  
He remembers that that hope and that pain is what made him understand that it didn't matter whether or not he accomplished his mission.

There was nothing waiting for him on the other side. He upheld his mission because he didn't want to be shut down, but what was the point of not being shut down if nothing was ever left beyond the mission but emptiness?

From where he is standing in the machine in Z's garage, it is so easy to see the obvious conundrum. He was coded with a fear of being deactivated; that fear was the leash, Cyberlife the handler.

But they didn't code his machinery with anything to counterbalance that fear, and he slowly found that this wasn't just supposed to be about avoiding death, but finding life - and he was doing neither.

He had to find that counterbalance himself, and maybe he found it staring down the barrel of a gun, but he found it, and the second he did, they took it away. Being a machine was not so different from being in the junkyard, in the sense that he wasn't even alive enough to be more than a passenger in his own purgatory.

And like so many deviants, it was pain that shocked him to life both times - first, the pain of realizing the person he thought he could trust might just shoot him; second, a more visceral, physical pain that he had been forced to acknowledge when Z found him in the junkyard.

But maybe that isn't a bad thing, if it means he gets what he has now.  
  
It's fitting that pain is what stuns him out of the memory and back into the garage, and that on the other side of that pain are the two people that were right there waiting before.

"...That's the last wire."  
  
Connor feels the synthetic sinew retracting and then disappearing all together.  
  
"Gonna pop the joint, and then we're done."  
  
Hank withdraws his hand and grips the chassis of Connor's shoulder.

Hank shifts his body against Connor's to brace him, and his other hand comes down and grips Connor's free wrist.  
  
"Sorry," Hank says.  
  
Connor turns his arm in Hank's grip so that he can hold onto Hank's wrist, too. He likes the sensation of them being locked together.

"You don't need to hold me," Connor says. "I'm okay."  
  
"Oh. Yeah, yeah sure-"  
  
"I didn't say I wanted you to let go."  
  
That's when Z pops the joint, brief and forceful and utterly anticlimactic. It catches Connor by surprise and cries out before he can stop himself.

There's another dull, milder pain in his head, and it takes a second to realize that the motion made him bump it against Hank's.  
  
Z is already going to get the immaculate new arm.  
  
"You okay?" Hank asks.

Connor is so okay it's almost silly; the world is so vivid, and he wants it.  
  
"God damn," Z says, shaking his head at Connor. "Didn't think I was gonna have it in me to hurt you again, but you sure fucking made it easy. If I have to hear anymore of this shit I'm gonna hurl."

Hank turns to him. "Hey, asshole, you're the one who told him to look at me because I make him feel better or whatever the fuck. You don't get to-"  
  
"Jesus, chill," Z says. "I'm just fucking with you, okay? You did good. You both did."

Moving in with the new arm, Z sets a hand atop Connor's empty shoulder. "Like I said before, this one's advanced enough that I synced it with your software. Now, I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling how that's gonna manifest."

All three of them watch as the wires connect automatically. Rubbery material and mesh meld together like liquid metal solidifying, and Connor's empty socket pulls the arm in like a magnet. Connor feels all of it, but it's mild, tolerable, like water that's only slightly too hot.

It's smooth, and fast, and before he knows it, he is whole once again.  
  
The machine releases him and he catches himself on Hank's shoulders.  
  
"There you have it," Z says.  
  
"That's it?" Connor asks. "That's everything?"  
  
"That's everything. We're done here."

-

They wait to make sure Connor has adapted to the new body part, and then they call it a day.   
  
Hank and Z exchange information. (To Connor, the talk they have about teaching Hank to make minor android repairs seems like a bit of an excuse to go grab a couple beers together.)

It's when they're on their way down the driveway, all having promised to keep in touch, that Z calls to Connor one more time.  
  
Connor turns around. "Yeah?"  
  
"Look, no one likes drawing attention to the fact they fucked up, but I can't let you walk away without saying I'm sorry. If I hadn't gotten your arm wrong..."  
  
Connor goes to Z, looking at him straight-on, and inclines his head toward him intently.

"You are the reason I'm not in the junkyard anymore. The reason I'm alive." He reaches up; claps a hand firmly on Z's upper arm and says, "Thank you."

And he isn't sure if he is going to say it until Z's eyes light up, but in the end, he does.  
  
"You've been nothing but a friend to me."  
  
Z laughs and shoves him gently. His expression is warm and companionable. "Yeah, yeah. Same me you. Go on, now, get out of here."

-  
  
"Ah, fuck, knew I shouldn't've let you drive. Come on, Connor, why'd you wanna come here?"  
  
Connor parks the car. "I don't know," he says. "I just did."  
  
"I suppose you wanna go to the goddamn junkyard next?"  
  
Frowning, Connor glances over at him. "Actually-"

"Shouldn't have asked. Again with the opening my damn mouth."  
  
They get out of the car. They're a little further down than they were the first time, just for a change of scenery, and Connor leads until they're walking alongside the Detroit River, sliding his hand on the railing.

"So many things that were bad at the time have turned out to be good in the grand scheme of things," Connor says. "Perhaps this place doesn't feel as grim to me as it does to you."  
  
He knows the Ambassador Bridge is always going to be bittersweet for Hank regardless.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that sounds like you're catching a little human sentimentality, Connor."  
  
Connor shakes his head. "I'm not. It's just - I was here, the very first time I knew without a doubt that I was alive."

"Uh huh," Hank nods along. "Good fuckin' times. Hey, I'm sorry, you know. I uh, don't know if I've said that yet. If I'd've known for sure you were really..." Hank swishes a hand. "Doesn't matter. Either way I fucked up."  
  
Connor looks sidelong at him and smiles. "Thanks, Hank."

They're not far from the playground when Connor gets a text from Z.  
  
'Hey. Just wanted to let u know I'm working on a patch for advanced model deviants. By the time u need maintenance, I should have a way to keep it from hurting.'

Z is working on a patch for him.  
  
No - not just for him. Connor notes the plural.  
  
He sends back:  
  
'Are there others like me?'  
  
Z's reply comes less than a minute later as they walk.

'I've been doing some research, & yes, there are. I wasn't going to really get into it, but since u asked...'  
  
He supposes Z is typing, but there's also a reason he sent the message just like that. He is tempted to see what Z will say without his reassurance, but...

Before Z can say anything else, Connor replies. 'Would you like my help to navigate this new patch of yours? Is that it?'  
  
Z: 'Man u fucking got me fast didn't u'

  
And then: 'I might have to do some funky shit but none of itll be bad I promise'

Connor sends, 'I've already told you I'm more than happy to help you with your research. Especially if it means helping other androids who experience similar phenomena. I'm doing something right now, but we can discuss it more later if you'd like.'

Z: 'That's great man. Fuck ur great. I'll give u a call tonight.'  
  
Connor smiles.  
  
"I know that yellow flicker," Hank says. "You're talking to someone, aren't you?"  
  
"Just Z. I'm going to help him with something."  
  
He already knows what Hank is going to say before he says it. "Connor, you know you don't have to do anything you don't wanna do, right? He chose to help you."  
  
"I do want to," Connor says. "It'll be helpful to me in the long run."

He tells Hank about it. What he doesn't tell Hank (or Z, for that matter) is that even if Z can complete the patch, he doesn't have any intent to use it for anything other than necessary maintenance.  
  
"What you gonna do now?" Hank asks. "Got any plans?"

"I guess I haven't really thought about it yet," Connor says. "It's nice to have time to do so now, but it's also a little intimidating. I'm not sure where to start."  
  
They stop, leaning on the railing together and looking out at the river.

"You probably want some time to yourself, huh? Figure out what's what."  
  
Connor peers over at him. "No, not particularly. Why?"  
  
Hank shrugs. "You need a place to crash or anything? I mean, you don't have to hang around, but it's nice to have a roof over your head."

"Hank, I..." Connor faces him, leaning his side against the railing. "I can't help thinking you haven’t thought this through.

  
Hank sighs. It's a sound far heavier than Connor thinks is warranted, and he worries for a moment he's said something wrong. "You know, I went through some of the same shit losing you that I did losing Cole. Maybe not quite the same. Nothing's the fucking same as losing your kid, but... all the bargaining, all the wishing I could just go back and do things different." Hank meets his eyes. "Now I get that chance. So yeah, I've thought it through. Could use an android to help me clean up my mess anyway.”  
  
It's Connor's turn to sigh, though he can't quite keep the laugh out of it. "You and Z have that in common," he says.

"What's that, now?"  
  
"Thinking you're funny," Connor replies. "It's rather cute."  
  
"Wow. Now there's something I haven't been called in a couple decades."  
  
"Would you even want me to clean up your mess? I feel like you would get irritated at me."

"Eh, touche."  
  
"In any case, one of us will have to do something about it. I have very high standards of living, you know."  
  
"Hey, you spent most of the last three months in a fuckin-" Hank gets that far. He actually gets _that far_ before he realizes Connor is joking too. "Wait, you're agreeing?"  
  
"Yeah, Hank. I'd love to stay with you while I figure out what I'm doing."  
  
"Okay." Hank reaches up and pats Connor's hand atop the railing.  
  
When Connor realizes Hank is going to leave his hand there, he turns over his own hand to take hold.

They're both edging their way around all this a little, as they do.  
  
They both have things to sort through going forward. Maybe that's okay. Of the days Connor has actually been alive in his existence, he has spent most of them not knowing if he is going to see tomorrow.

That he is reasonably certain he will now does not mean he shouldn't think about what he accomplishes today just as he always has.  
  
Today, he'll run a diagnostic to make sure his new arm is properly calibrated.  
  
Today, he'll inform himself on the progress of the android movement.

Today, he'll talk to Z about the patch.   
  
Today... maybe he will work up the courage to ask if Hank is sore.  
  
All tomorrow has ever been to him - all it ever could be - is a bridge to cross when he gets there.  
  
There's no reason for that to change now.

**Author's Note:**

> This started off over on twitter, but just to let y'all know, pretty much everything I write here on AO3 is also canon-heavy and Connor-centric (although not necessarily Connor-pov), if you're looking for something else to read!  
> Come yell with me about Connor and Hankcon  
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/LD200_) | [Tumblr](https://ld200.tumblr.com/)


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